Key Change: Emma Straub on ‘69 Love Songs’ by The Magnetic Fields

My guest today is the bestselling author Emma Straub. Her books include 'This Time Tomorrow,' 'Modern Lovers,' 'The Vacationers,' and more. And with her husband, Michael Fusco, she co-owns the beautiful Brooklyn bookstore Books Are Magic. I'm so thrilled to have her on because, not only is she a wonderful writer, but Key Change is a series about music fandom and identity. And Emma's newest novel 'American Fantasy' is also about music fandom and identity. That story is set on a cruise ship centered around a nineties boy band and their fans. But today, Emma's going to tell me her story about her own relationship with the music of The Magnetic Fields. Stephin Merritt from the Magnetic Fields was just named one of the greatest living American songwriters by the New York Times, and Emma’s introduction to their music was their 1999 triple album, '69 Love Songs.' For more info, visitsongexploder.net/emma-straub. https://songexploder.net/emma-straub

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and, piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway.

• 0:11Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I'm going to be on tour, playing some shows this fall. I'm going to be in London on Wednesday, November 18th. I'm going to be performing solo at Rough Trade Records on Denmark Street, and I'm going to be in conversation about my music moderated by one of my favorite actors and writers, Matthew Bainton. And a ticket to the show also gets you a copy of my album on vinyl or CD. And in December, I'm going to be on tour supporting S. Carrie. We're going to be playing a bunch of shows in the Northeast US. So I hope to see you in one of those places. You can find all the details and get links to tickets at songexploder.net/live. That's songexploder.net/live.

• 0:55Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 1:39Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 1:56Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Thanks to Quince for sponsoring Song Exploder. I have this Quince cashmere sweater that's become my go-to in the fall. And it's one of those pieces where, as soon as I started wearing it, I couldn't really remember what I used to wear before I had it. It's the Mongolian cashmere quarter-button sweater in black. And those kinds of staples are what Quince is known for. Jeans, t-shirts, jackets, sweaters, and actually, a lot more, too. And everything at Quince is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. So you're paying for quality, not brand markup. Their 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters start at just $60. Find your next fall favorites at Quince.

• 2:38Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 2:57Hrishikesh Hirway?

  This is Key Change, where I talk to fascinating people about the music that changed their lives. And my guest today is the bestselling author Emma Straub. Her books include This Time Tomorrow, Modern Lovers, The Vacationers, and more. And with her husband, Michael Fusco, she co-owns the beautiful Brooklyn bookstore Books Are Magic. I'm so thrilled to have her on because not only is she a wonderful writer, but Key Change is a series about music fandom and identity. And Emma's newest novel, American Fantasy, is also about music fandom and identity. That story is set on a cruise ship centered around a 90s boy band and their fans. But today, Emma's going to tell me her story about her own relationship with the music of The Magnetic Fields. Stephin Merritt from The Magnetic Fields was just named one of the greatest living American songwriters

• 3:42Hrishikesh Hirway?

  by The New York Times. And Emma's introduction to their music was the 1999 triple album 69 Love Songs. Thank you so much for being here, Emma.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  I cannot believe it because I have listened to every episode. I am your number one fan. And so it is very surreal for me to be here. And I am honored and thank you.

• 4:04Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Do you remember the first time that you heard the magnetic fields?

• 4:08Speaker 01

  So I was a sophomore in college at Oberlin in 1999. And more than I remember actually hearing them for the first time, I remember hearing their name. Like, you couldn't walk six steps in Oberlin, Ohio in 1999 and not have someone talk about the magnetic fields.

• 4:33Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And what were people saying?

• 4:34Speaker 01

  That they were amazing. They were incredible. Stephin Merritt is a genius, et cetera, et cetera.

• 4:39Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Are you the kind of person, when you hear hype like that, is your instinct to say, I want to know more about that? I want to know what everybody's so excited about? Or are you someone who's like, oh, everybody likes it? That means I'm probably going to actually make a little bit of an effort not to listen.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Yes. I mean, particularly at the time. I think now, I'm 45, and I think if all my friends think something is terrific, now I'm more likely to be like, well, I should check that out. But yeah, at the time, I was quite contrary. And I particularly didn't like how sort of cool and hip every single person was at Oberlin. But yeah, I think I thought, I put them in a category, sort of like, derida. You know, it was like, oh, something smart that I probably can't understand.

• 5:38Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Uh huh. Do you remember a moment where you actually heard the band and you thought, oh, it turns out this thing I was maybe avoiding, I do like?

• 5:47Speaker 01

  So when I was an intern at Simon & Schuster, I spent every evening at a bar called Siberia, which was this dank.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Dark, sticky space in the 50th Street 19 subway station. It no longer exists, but they had an incredible jukebox and they had all three of the CDs in the jukebox.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  What I found most exciting was that Stephen's lyrics, they are brilliant and

• 6:53Speaker 01

  there are so many jokes, punctuation jokes, English language jokes.

• 6:59Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Word nerd jokes.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  Word nerd jokes.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  And I quickly realized that not only did I love it, but I wanted to listen to it all the time, all the time. So I went and I bought them at the Tower Records, which was then on 66th Street and Broadway on the Upper West Side. All three records came in a box set, but they also sold them individually. So I bought one at a time, but that didn't last very long because I became absolutely devoted. And that summer, I played nothing but Magnetic Fields.

• 7:36Hrishikesh Hirway?

  What else were you listening to before you got into the Magnetic Fields? Like, what were some of your other favorite bands?

• 7:43Speaker 01

  I guess in college, Jeff Buckley, Elliott Smith, Rufus Wainwright. Like, yeah, I loved like a beautiful sad boy.

• 7:54Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And so when you heard Stephin Merritt's voice and you heard him singing, did it feel like something different or did it feel like an extension of that particular kind of love?

• 8:02Speaker 01

  It felt, yeah, I mean, it felt related because there was certainly a lot of sadness and longing, et cetera.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  But I think what really blew my mind about Stephen is that I didn't listen to anything funny, you know, like, how often is good music funny?

• 8:23Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Right.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  So then, I think it was 2001, it was my mother's birthday, and I went out to dinner with my parents. We had several bottles of wine. And then I convinced them to go see The Magnetic Fields with me. They were playing at The Bottom Line on Bleeker Street in Greenwich Village. And my father's friend was the opening act. Well, okay, this is where things get a little bit complicated, where I reveal myself as a nepo baby of a literary sort. Because Stephen was a great reader, and he and his manager, Claudia Gonsalves, who's

• 9:08Speaker 01

  also in the band, they were friends with all these writers I knew because they were friends with my dad. Peter Straub, he wrote big, fat, scary books, horror, some of them supernatural, but most of them much more about the evils of people. But anyway, we go, and the room is tiny, and we were like, you know, four feet away from them, and it was transcendentally beautiful. It was incredible. And my dad, I watched it happen, like, I watched him, because I knew that if he actually listened, he would love it. And I watched

• 9:51Speaker 01

  him fall in love, you know, with this band that I loved. And afterward, we went backstage. And again, remember, we are all very drunk.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  I'm like 20 years old, leaning up against the wall, trying to remain vertical while my father, my father was a very large man. Steven is a very small man. And I was watching my very large, lumbering drunk father lean in towards my tiny, beautiful little musical hero and ask him questions like, so who are your influences? And anyway, I was so embarrassed and I got out of there. You know, we got out of there and I was so mad. And then about six months later, I had graduated from college and my parents were having a singer who was friends with Steven named LD Bechtel, who's one of the singers on 69 Love Songs.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  He was at their house for dinner and he said to my parents, oh, you know, Steven's looking for a personal assistant. Do you know anyone? And so I raised my hand and that was in 2002. And I started working for him as his personal assistant.

• 11:15Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Before that dinner and before this opportunity came up,

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:18Hrishikesh Hirway?

  what had been your plan for, for working? Like, what was your, your dream job after college?

• 11:24Speaker 01

  So my plan was to become a novelist and I got a job in publishing. But I was so confident about my career as a novelist. And I wrote novels. Nobody wanted to publish them, but I wrote them nonetheless. And I, I just kept trying.

• 11:45Hrishikesh Hirway?

  So in the moment when you raise your hand saying, I could take this job.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:51Hrishikesh Hirway?

  How did that fit in with your dream of being a novelist? Were you thinking at that time, I can do both of these things at the same time? Or are you thinking, I'm going to put the writing on pause for a second and have this other job because what a wonderful opportunity?

• 12:05Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no. I, I always, I, I was always a novelist first, but by that point, it was clear to me that it was going to take a little time to get that off the ground. And I just loved the idea of being around Steven. Like, I didn't know, I didn't know what it was. And the job interview, such as it was, was I made a date with Claudia, who is Steven's manager. And Stephen, and we met at a coffee shop.

• 12:36Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Do you remember how you felt when you were going into that meeting?

• 12:39Speaker 01

  I mean, I was terrified. First of all, I had never been anyone's personal assistant before. My only previous job had been, you know, as like an assistant in publishing, which I had been terrible at. And I just adored him. So I remember feeling like I had to be very careful. But that really didn't last very long because we sat down and we talked for a few minutes and then Claudia just started reading me Stephen's to do list. Oh, well, I guess I got the job.

• 13:16Hrishikesh Hirway?

  My conversation with Emma Straub continues after this.

• 13:22Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 14:09Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 14:54Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Join Wayfair Rewards today and get 5% back on every purchase. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com. Wayfair, every style, every home. This episode is sponsored by LinkedIn. Anyone who's ever had to spend money on marketing knows how tricky it can be to feel like you've spent that money wisely. Well, with LinkedIn Ads, you can be sure that you'll get a great return on your investment. You can target your campaigns by company, industry, job title, and more. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com/songexploder.

• 15:39Hrishikesh Hirway?

  That's linkedin.com/songexploder. Terms and conditions apply.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  OK, so I started working for him in 2002, and one of my big tasks was making a complete lyric book, because everything was scattered all over the place. You know, he had like 500 Moleskine notebooks. And so I organized those and typed everything up and actually made it so he had all of his lyrics in one place, things like that.

• 16:17Hrishikesh Hirway?

  For more than just the 69 love songs?

• 16:19Speaker 01

  Oh, for everything, for everything.

• 16:21Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Because Stephen Merritt also has all these other projects.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Well, sure, there's the future Bible heroes. There's the Gothic arches. And then he's done some things just under his own name.

• 16:31Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah, and so all of that was under your purview.

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 16:36Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You said you loved the lyrics and the jokes. What about the other aspects of the music?

• 16:41Speaker 01

  What I found most exciting was that there were all these different voices.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  There are men, but there are women, but they're, they're like, how many people are there? It was this whole sort of panoply and, and I mean, there was his voice, which is so identifiable to me now, but at the time, because it wasn't connected to music videos or visuals of any kind, I really had sort of no idea who was in this band. And there was such a range of actual music, too. Like, I loved how much of it there was. He was gonna do 100. He was gonna do 100, but then that seemed like too much, so he stopped at 69.

• 17:36Hrishikesh Hirway?

  At what point do you think you realized that this music was gonna be braided into your life?

• 17:44Speaker 01

  So they put out the follow-up record to 69 Love Songs, which was called I. And they were going on tour and they said, oh, well, come on tour, come on tour. Because basically Claudia had previously, or they'd had other friends who sold the merch sometimes, but, you know, I was there and I knew everything and knew everybody and they all liked to have me around. So they invited me.

• 18:12Hrishikesh Hirway?

  To sell merch?

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, to sell the merch. And to sort of be like a helper.

• 18:17Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And were you excited about this idea or were you scared about the idea?

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Okay, so I was excited, trepidatious, but excited until we got there. And then I was like, oh, no, no, this is a horrible disaster for several reasons. So number one, I don't like to stay up late. Number two, I don't particularly like to count things like math. Math is really not for me. It's really not for me. Numbers in general, just not my bag. And we stayed in all kinds of places, but in Canada, we stayed at their friend's house and they had me sleep in the basement. And there was a cat who was on death's door.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  And I just remember being in this Canadian basement with this dying cat. And I was just like, what? This is terrible. And so my solution was to suggest that we bring my boyfriend. And they were like, great, two for the price of one. Because they knew Mike and they knew that he actually would be good at it. So the second time we went out, he came. And then everything was great because we both had our jobs that we were good at. Mike was good at everything that had to do with the actual job of it. You know, like ordering the T-shirts and making sure that this box was getting shipped to Bloomington, Indiana, or whatever.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  And I was good at talking to people. So, I mean, we did that for 10 years. But what I loved was during the concerts, no one would come out and see us. And so we would mostly just get to watch the show every night. And I loved it. And I loved the different ways they played songs over the years. And thinking about coming here and talking to you, I was thinking about how when we heard the song Grand Canyon start, that's when we knew, oh, okay. Sort of time to get into position. Because that was the last song. And then we knew we had to sort of get back to the booth.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  And I, I mean, I appointed myself the chronicler. And so I took pictures and I kept like a tour blog every time, which are still there. They're hilarious. And I wrote about it. I mean, I, I'm quite a messy, disorganized person. But I really took seriously being an archivist for what I was a part of. Because I just, I thought their music, I still think their music is so important and meaningful and profound. And I loved them and I was so happy to be there. And then we got married in 2008.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  And when I asked Stephen to play at our wedding, He said, "Not the Book of Lover, it's only time." And I was like, "Do you think I'm an amateur?" Because I answered all of his emails. So I knew that that was what people always asked for. I wanted him to sing as my dad and I walked in down the aisle. I mean, the aisle, it was the side of the dining room, you know. I wanted him to sing a Gothic Archie song called Walking My Gargoyle, which is a song that he wrote about his chihuahua, Irving. And he was worried that people would think that he had chosen it and that he was calling either me or my dad a gargoyle.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  To which I responded, "Well, that's fine with me. I mean, I don't care. I'll be a gargoyle, he'll be a gargoyle. We're all gargoyles." I just think it's one of the most beautiful, pure, pure love song. One of the purest love songs he ever, he ever wrote.

• 22:13Hrishikesh Hirway?

  The fact that you and Michael did merch for The Magnetic Fields for so many years, did that play into your decision to open a bookstore?

• 22:23Speaker 01

  Yes. I mean, most people don't understand that all we're doing right now is running a really big merch booth. That, yes. I mean, I think that we had no experience, you know, that most people could see. But what we knew going into opening Books Are Magic was that we could do it. And the reason we knew we could do it is because we had done it for The Magnetic Fields. We knew that Mike was good at organization and logistics. And we knew that I was good at talking to people. And I think that we felt confident opening the bookstore because of those things. Like, we just knew that we'd be okay.

• 23:06Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Do you think that all those years of listening to The Magnetic Fields, not just listening, but like, working so closely within that world?

• 23:15Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Do you feel like there's an influence that comes from your relationship to the music?

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I have, I have used Stephen's lyrics as epigraphs for not all of my novels, but most of them.

• 23:32Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Including American Fantasy.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Including American Fantasy. And the line that is an epigraph for American Fantasy is, "A pretty boy in his underwear."

• 23:46Speaker 01

  If there's anything better in this whole world, well, who cares?

• 23:53Speaker 01

  I mean, if that's not perfect for a book about a boy band cruise, then, you know. And I do think that being around smart people makes you smarter. You know, I think that having to keep up with Stephen, just conversationally, probably made me smarter. I will say, I don't play word games with Stephen every day anymore, but I did for a long time, and my mother still does. And he really is unbeatable. I have played Scrabble against that man more than anyone else, like, other than my husband, probably. And I don't think I have ever won, not once.

• 24:34Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And when you look at your writing now, do you feel like you see some kindred quality with the magnetic fields, the jokes that you loved when you first heard their music?

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Humor was always important to me. Like, my first book, my poor first novel that nobody read, it was really not funny. And my second book, The Vacationers, sold maybe like 150 times as many copies. And it's because it's actually in my own voice, you know, like, from my point of view. And I was like, oh, that, that's what I'm supposed to do. That's what I'm supposed to do. And that's what I've done since. And it's so pleasurable. And do other people think my books are funny? I don't know. I hope so. I hope so. And I hope that they

• 25:26Speaker 01

  take them seriously, you know, as I do with Stephen's work. It's not that I just think he's, you know, he's not just writing jokes. He's writing heartbreak and making it funny.

• 25:37Hrishikesh Hirway?

  What is your relationship with 69 Love Songs nowadays?

• 25:41Speaker 01

  I mean, now, I guess now it's the, you know, the body of work that I know the best, probably, period. I mean, the album, if I think of it as one complete album, that I know better than any other.

• 25:56Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Do you mean any other album by Magnetic Fields?

• 25:58Speaker 01

  No, no, I mean, any other record, period.

• 26:02Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Do you still listen to it? Do you still put it on?

• 26:04Speaker 01

  I do. And what I love is when we are listening to music in a less, you know, like, album-driven way, like, we have something, sort of a playlist or something playing in the house, and the Magnetic Fields will come on, and one of my children will say, "Is this Uncle Stephen?" And we say, "Yes, it is."

• 26:27Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Visit Emma's website, emmastraub.net, to learn more about her books and what she's up to. And her work with the Magnetic Fields continues, because the Magnetic Fields are putting out a special colored, limited-edition vinyl of their album, Love at the Bottom of the Sea, that's only going to be available at her store, Books are Magic. They're having an event on May 29. And, by the way, Love at the Bottom of the Sea is the album on which the Magnetic Fields song, "Andrew in Drag," appears. And Stephin Merritt himself was a guest on Song Exploder, talking about the making of the song "Andrew in Drag" way back in 2015. It's a great episode. Please check it out.

• 27:05Hrishikesh Hirway?

  For more Key Change episodes, go to songexploder.net/kechange. This episode was produced by me, Craig Ely, and Mary Dolan, with production assistance from Tiger Biscop. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at radiotopia.fm. If you'd like to hear more from me, subscribe to my newsletter. You can find a link to it on the Song Exploder website. You can also get a Song Exploder shirt at songexploder.net/shirt. I'm Rishi Keshi-Hirway. Thanks for listening.

• 27:47Speaker 03

  Radiotopia.

• 27:50Speaker 03

  From PRX.