69 Love Songs poll

Harder question: list all MF songs which are better than all 69 love songs. I've got "Plant White Roses," "100,000 Fireflies," "Kings," "Take Ecstasy with Me," and "Born on a Train." Maybe "Save a Secret for the Moon" and "All the Umbrellas in London," though these I think are particularly "69 Love Songs-like" and thus harder to weigh against the actual 69 Love Songs songs.

Someone needs to a do a worst song on 69LS poll once this one has finished.

Heck, why wait?

Ah, the WORST song on "69 Love Songs" why don't you?

Hardest poll imaginable, there's at least 62 wonderful songs on this (HE SPEAKS TO ME MAN etc), at leadt 30 picks for fav, went with "My Only Friend" cos it was in my head the other day

Ferdinand

long-forgotten fairytale!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wow. More songs got votes than didn't!

Didn't vote but would have picked All My Little Words so am happy with the winner. Not mad about some of the ones that ran it close though. The Death Of Ferdinand De Saussure is OK but the whole concept is a bit annoying; Papa Was A Rodeo and The Book Of Love I've always admired more than loved, their dirgey qualities getting in the way a bit; I can never remember which one Long Forgotten Fairytale is; Busby Berkeley Dreams has a weak chorus and Sweet-Lovin' Man is just horrendous.

disc 1: 36 votes
disc 2: 27 votes
disc 3: 20 votes

i listen to disc 1 way more than the other 2, i'm not sure if it's actually because it's better or if i just like it better because i've listened to it more and am more familiar with the songs

Harder question: list all MF songs which are better than all 69 love songs. I've got "Plant White Roses," "100,000 Fireflies," "Kings," "Take Ecstasy with Me," and "Born on a Train." Maybe "Save a Secret for the Moon" and "All the Umbrellas in London," though these I think are particularly "69 Love Songs-like" and thus harder to weigh against the actual 69 Love Songs songs.

typically enough for me i think overall 69LS is some of his weakest work up to that point - give me the first two albums and 'highway strip' over 69LS any day

Had I known no one was voting for "Washington D.C.," I would have.

I haven't listened through this album enough to make up my mind about one particular favourite, in fact I still have trouble deciding from song to song. So I didn't vote in this poll, but it must have been one of those synthpop-tinged songs on the 2nd or 3rd CD.

Um, isn't that all of them?

it was probably "Promises of Eternity"

Harder question: list all MF songs which are better than all 69 love songs

add "Strange Powers" and "Two Characters in Search of a Country Song".

I probably would have picked "I Don't Want to Get Over You." Don't think I've listened to the whole thing tho.

Add to the list - "Long Vermont Roads." Cosign re: "Take Ecstasy With Me," especially the Susan Amway version.

Really great songs that had no votes:

Grand Canyon
The Night You Can't Remember
Two Kinds Of People
I Don't Believe In The Sun
Acoustic Guitar
Kiss Me Like You Mean It
The Things We Did And Didn't Do
Boa Constrictor
Parades Go By

Parades Go By

!

Is that ! at it being good, or ! at it getting no votes?

First and second place in this poll are weak.

Was the Susan Amway version of Take Ecstasy With Me released, or do I need to mickey-acquire it?

xpost both of those things.

Hey y'all. I don't have my copy of 69 Love Songs with me and internetting is not helping. Can someone tell me what Aphex Twin song Merritt called one of the greatest compositions of the 20th century (or something to that effect....he does say this in the liners, does he not)? Thanx!!!

The version I have makes no obvious mention of Aphex Twin, alas.

Kevin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIeA2ct5Sew

That bit from the booklet is quoted here.

Oooh awesome! Thanx on the roof (and odd - I was looking at that blog when googling this...).

reno dakota

7 votes for the death of ferdinand de saussure and only 1 for abigail, belle of kilroan? this needs to be polled again.

15 years old, ayo

Don't do that, all I need to do is look at my kids, or my CD racks, and time flashes by.

Couldn't do this poll now.

7 votes for the death of ferdinand de saussure and only 1 for abigail, belle of kilroan? this needs to be polled again.

Ha, I'm pretty sure I was that one vote.

I don't think I have listened to this in 12 years.

I remember when £5 would get you 69 poll options, with enough left over for a side poll. Now you daren't leave the house.

i listened to this a bit recently after a long layoff, really the thing that had changed most was that it was harder to have affection for the shittiness of the sound/arrangements

something i have never cared about.

how music sounds, you never cared about that

production, no. It's Stephin making music in his apartment, whaddya want?

check any ILE film poll for ppl who don't care how movies look

The next ILX covers project?

Maybe not...

You're My Only Home 0

def the best song that didn't get a vote.

like Love Is Like A Bottle Of Gin and Grand Canyon more.

Of the zero voteds:

"Fido, your leash is too long" is scarily like a song I wrote called "Rover, come back to me this minute" when I was 12, and had forgotten until I heard that one.

Also, "Not that crazy" is great, and I'm amazed that "Parades go by" got zero as its one of the best tracks.

decided to pull this out during an insomniac fit - listening to the whole thing as a piece makes me appreciate it more and im glad i successfully fought off the temptation to skip some of the filler songs like 'experimental love' or 'roses'

taken as a whole i think its really beautiful and impressive in a particular way it reminds me of watching the coolest boy i knew lighting a cigarette in one fluid single-handed motion this performance thats both studied and nonchalant. like how the smallest things are best equipped to bear the burden of grace because theyre secure in their own inconsequence

Underwear is underrated. Both in life and in song.

There is no filler on this for me. I can't imagine the sequencing arguments but they nailed it.

this is one of my favorite albums but i think most of the "filler" is unlistenable after the third or fourth rundown. the imperfections make me like the album better... flawless albums are almost suspicious to me. albums don't need to be "total works" and in some cases it's better if they're not.

my controversial opinion on this thing is that busby berkeley dreams > the book of love

punk love fucking rules

busby berkeley dreams > the book of love

I can see why you might feel that way. There's an unmistakable sense of pathos and longing in BBD whereas BOL can be seen as tongue-in-cheek. Frankly I think Peter Gabriel did more justice to BOL by finding it's true emotional heart.

Who'll take its ashes and
Singing, fling them from the top of the Brill Building

I did the same thing a couple years ago, around the time 50 Song Memoir came out. Pared out the 19 most annoying or cringey tracks, leaving a playlist of 50. I play it all on shuffle once every few months. Until setting that up, I don't think I had listened to more than an hour's worth over the previous 15 years or so.

seeing the 25th anniversary show for this album on wednesday. looks like in boston he played the whole album in order over two nights, split right down the middle at "promises of eternity"/"world love." i only have tix for wednesday, which i guess means the first half? i think most of my faves are in the first half, but i'll miss "papa was a rodeo," "ferdinand de saussure," "asleep and dreaming," "yeah! oh yeah!," etc.

the only one i would've been genuinely devastated about missing is "luckiest guy" and it looks like i'll catch that one

I would be far more into this if it was a Mag Fields/6ths/GAs/FBHs greatest hits revue, and not to say I don't like 69 Love Songs it's just I'm a bigger fan of SM's larger body of work than this isolated project.

quite enjoyed part 1 of this in new york (and i'll be back for part 2 tonight), especially dudley klute, who sat in an easy chair at the back of the stage for the entire show, occasionally looking like he might be napping, getting up three or four times to saunter over to a microphone about 10 paces to his left whenever one of his songs came up, and then back to his easy chair to wait for the next one.

everybody was in great voice, especially shirley and claudia.

yes it was a lovely show. i will probably get tickets for next thursday to see the rest of the 69.

it was really fun hearing the little moments the crowd got excited for: "it makes me drink beeeeer!"; how fucking romantic; crazy for you but not that crazy; and obviously dudley's epic held note at the end of luckiest guy

in general tho, it was a very polite crowd and i felt weird singing along to "absolutely cuckoo" among everyone else enjoying in silence, so i was pretty quiet for most of the rest of the show. maybe it was different in the balcony? i was in the orchestra

.. playing the cor anglais ...