69 Love Songs

OR, IF you prefer, a very long album about love.

69 Love Songs does exactly as it says on the tin – it’s a 3CD set of pop sonnets by workaholic wonderboy Stephen Merritt, originally conceived as a 100-song revue to be performed by a cast of singers in the hotel bars and cabaret spots of New York.

Logistics forced Merritt to pare the production down by some 31 numbers, but the revue element has been preserved, and the vocal duties are spread among a number of crooners, the most beguiling being Shirley Simms, whose pleading tone recalls those classic early Kirsty MacColl singles.

One thing’s for sure, Merritt’s having fun with the format, by turns as sharp as Morrissey or as gauche as Jonathan Richman. Okay, he’s sending up all the stock clichés of the love song – heart metaphors, flowers, rings, books of love – but no matter how smirky and quirky the titles get (‘Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long’, ‘The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be’, ‘How Fucking Romantic’, ‘Let’s Pretend We’re Bunny Rabbits’) the quality control only rarely slips. This is Cole Porter’s lyrical wit and Burt Bacharach’s melodic sensibility reinterpreted for fans of Bill Callaghan and Beck.

In stylistic terms, it’s pocket symphony time, squeezing Scott Walker-sized soliloquies out of the bare bones of synthesizer, acoustic guitar, cello, banjo and a few other bits and bobs. Indeed, the sheer spread of styles is recklessly eclectic – country, garage rock, post rock, synth-pop, show tunes, polkas, township music, Irish, English and Scottish folk songs – standards of every shade and stripe.

Most importantly though, Merritt is not afraid of telling it straight: ‘Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing’ is as tender as Neil’s ‘Harvest Moon’ while ‘There’ll Be Time Enough For Rocking When We’re Old’ is a ringer for one of Johnny Cash’s hillbilly homilies, albeit scripted by Steve Martin. But the most direct hit to the heart is his hymn to Billie Holiday, ‘My Only Friend’.

Merritt may often adopt the position of his near-namesake and play the besotted Elephant Boy gazing at beautiful trapeze artists, but he also possesses the wry smarts that come with being a wallflower.

Is it too long at three hours? Maybe, but so too is Short Cuts. Lend him your ears.