Promises of eternity: 69 Love Songs/Peter Stampfel in concert (separately)

toujours l'amour

The Magnetic Fields: 69 Love Songs at Memorial Hall, Cincinnati, May 19–20, 2025

Photo by J.L.

Of all the things the Magnetic Fields have been up to over the last quarter-century, I don’t think their priority has been working on their musicianship. Maybe Sam Davol, whose electric cello held and holds the project together sonically even more than the guitars and ukuleles, is the exception, and certainly Anthony Kaczynski, sitting in for the late LD Beghtol, and keyboardist Chris Ewen, whose responsibilities in the five-piece setting included reproducing every accordion, are seasoned pros. But Stephin Merritt clearly never put the receipts from his UK #170 hit album towards voice lessons. His singing is the same as ever, which is exactly as good as his songs need. When he has a melody to unfurl (who cares if it’s the dumbest etc.), he’ll make sure he hits the notes; when it’s time to go bass he’ll creak basement groans, favoring depth over precision. Claudia Gonson was absent (as was John Woo), so her committed vocals were replaced by Shirley Simms’s more matter-of-fact ones: sometimes she sang as if Merritt’s ditties were sacred texts, which, well. Matter-of-factness has its value too when the texts are rich enough that hearing them anew with clarity brings new thoughts. Oh, “I’ve never stayed up as late as this” on “Come Back from San Francisco” is because of time zones! If all the men of Kilronan are off to war, then is “don’t be alone” handing Abigail a Pride flag?

Aside from a prevalent reduction in tempos, major differences from the album were few, mostly involving making things funnier. “Love Is Like Jazz”, the one song everyone hates, finally landed its joke by adding—no, not jazz, an arrangement, always easier for noobs than improvisation (take note, Andre 3000.) “Washington D.C.” found cheering for the capital impossible at this time, so the cheerleaders chanted like they were on benzos. Kaczynski was granted “Promises of Eternity” as the first set’s closer and sang it like he was a regular at a Chinese restaurant karaoke night circa 1990. Merritt’s deadpan meant his smallest actions could draw laughs, like his immobile Rockette kicks on “The Night You Can’t Remember”.

Then again, the audience (me included) laughed at things that most of us must’ve heard innumerable times, from oooh-the-F-word “How Fucking Romantic” to domestic violence comedy “Yeah! Oh Yeah!” The obvious point of coming to this show is that 69 Love Songs is one of the greatest albums ever—pretty clear at this point that beyond the concept, the average song holds up better than the average song on any of their subsequent records, and those subsequent records ain’t bad. And their meaning is intact as long as Merritt is there to sing the big ones. I’ve always known that when he breaks his drone for a real chorus on “Papa Was a Rodeo”, it’s great. After 25 years, I’m finally convinced that when he breaks his tunefulness to murmur “you ought to give me wedding rings” on “The Book of Love”, it’s equally so, no matter how very long ago it was written.

Peter Stampfel at the Orbit Room, Bloomington, Indiana, May 21 2025 (early show)

The next evening, the other greatest living Manhattan songwriter played his first show outside the northeast in who knows how many years a mile from my house. After decades in New Orleans, Mark Bingham, Stampfel’s longtime producer, returned to live in his hometown Bloomington, and played a residency at the Orbit Room, a 50-capacity venue that serves good if pricy by Indiana standards hot dogs, vegan options included. When I saw Hamell on Trial there last year, he didn’t get anywhere near fifty (but made up for it in merch); Stampfel sold out and added a second show the same day, which I didn’t go to because apparently I can’t match the stamina of an 86-year-old who got cheers when he made it down the admittedly precarious stairs to the venue, let alone his merely 76-year-old accompanist. I’m not sure if he had chemical assistance, or if it was legal in Indiana (reminder: nothing’s legal in Indiana), but he didn’t flag during the first set, save for occasionally having to crib from Bingham’s lyric sheets.

As you might know, Stampfel suffered from dysphonia a few years back before therapy got him enough of his voice back to resume recording and performing. Still, even after an initial caterwaul (“as foreplay”), hearing him sing was a shock. He used to be a melody-loving singer, never mind how much he waved around the theoretical note, and that’s not at all apparent anymore. After half of “Great Day”, I got over it. Like Billie Holiday or Andre the Giant, he’s adapted to physical limitations by dramatically remaking his toolkit; unlike them, he’s expanded it. He screams in a way that metal singers might respond “well that’s a bit much” to; he reduces his voice to a whisper that somehow sounds even coarser; he resorts to vocal fry when he runs out of breath. It’s expressionism bordering on the abstract, like hearing Pharoah Sanders’s extended techniques for the first time in the Sixties.

His deference for his own compositions may be limited, but ones I didn’t know or forgot came across distinctly (I liked the above “Zombie Cowboy” and his horse Jezebel, named not least for the rhyming possibilities), classics like “Euphoria”, “Griselda”, and “Midnight in Paris” created their own momentum, and “Wisconsin Honeymoon”, from 2009’s Dook of the Beatniks, sounded like one of the great uxorious songs. And his respect for the tradition of weirdos going back to the artists in the Anthology is clear. It’s about time someone put the freak back into freak folk.