Key Change: Emma Straub

Introduction

0:00You'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 Rishikesh Hirwe.

0:10I'm going to be on tour for the next few weeks, and all the dates are at songexploder.net slash live. I'm going to be playing songs from my new album, In the Last Hour of Light, with a full band, and I'm going to be talking about the making of my album with a special guest moderator in each city. I get to be the interviewee instead of the interviewer. So I'm going to be joined by Jason Manzoukas, Samin Nosrat, Allison Russell, Joshua Molina, Ken Jennings and John Roderick, Min Jin Lee, and Adam Scott. It's a really personal album, and I hope you can make it out to one of the shows.

0:41You can get tickets and more info at songexploder.net slash live.

Key Change Introduction

0:48This 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.

1:23But today, Emma's going to tell me her story about her own relationship with the music of The Magnetic Fields. Stephen 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 the 1999 triple album, 69 Love Songs. Thank you so much for being here, Emma. 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.

First Encounter

1:55Do you remember the first time that you heard The Magnetic Fields? 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. And what were people saying?

2:26That they were amazing. They were incredible. Stephen Merritt is a genius, et cetera, et cetera. 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. 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.

3:04But 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 Derrida. You know, it was like, oh, something smart that I probably can't understand. Uh-huh.

Discovering Magnetic Fields

3:30Do 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? So when I was an intern at Simon & Schuster, I spent every evening at a bar called Siberia, which was this dank, dark, sticky space in the 50th Street, 1-9 subway station.

4:02It no longer exists, but they had an incredible jukebox and they had all three of the CDs in the jukebox. Or I could make a career of being blue. I could dress in black and recalibro. Smoke clothes, cigarettes, and drink vermouth. When I was 17, there would be a scream, but I don't want to get over you.

4:33What I found most exciting was that Stephen's lyrics, they are brilliant. And there are so many jokes, punctuation jokes, English language jokes. Word nerd jokes. Word nerd jokes. 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.

5:11All 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. What else were you listening to before you got into the Magnetic Fields? What were some of your other favorite bands? I guess in college, Jeff Buckley, Elliot Smith, Rufus Wainwright, like, yeah, I loved like a beautiful, sad boy.

5:46And so when you heard Stephen 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? It felt, yeah, I mean, it felt related because there were certainly a lot of sadness and longing, etc. 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? Right. So then I think it was 2001.

6:20It 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 Bleecker 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.

6:52Because Stephen was a great reader, and he and his manager, Claudia Gonson, who's 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 transcendently beautiful.

7:29It 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 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. I'm, like, 20 years old, leaning up against the wall, trying to remain vertical, while my father was a very large man.

8:06Stephen 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 Stephen named L.D. Bechtol, who's one of the singers on 69 Love Songs.

8:38Now that you've made me want to die, you tell me that you're unboyfriendable.

8:49He was at their house for dinner, and he said to my parents, Oh, you know, Stephen's looking for a personal assistant. Do you know anyone?

Working with Stephen Merritt

8:58And so I raised my hand, and that was in 2002, and I started working for him as his personal assistant. Before that dinner, and before this opportunity came up, what had been your plan for working? Like, what was your dream job after college? 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.

9:30Nobody wanted to publish them, but I wrote them nonetheless, and I just kept trying. So in the moment when you raised your hand saying, I could take this job, 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 were you thinking, I'm going to put the writing on, pause for a second, and have this other job because what a wonderful opportunity? No, no, no, no. 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.

10:07And I just loved the idea of being around Stephen. Like, I didn't know what it was, and the job interview, such as it was, was I made a date with Claudia, who is Stephen's manager, and Stephen, and we met at a coffee shop. Do you remember how you felt when you were going into that meeting? I mean, I was terrified. First of all, I had never been anyone's personal assistant before.

10:38My 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. My conversation with Emma Straub continues after this.

11:14Song Exploder is sponsored by the game Mixtape, and to learn more, I talked to one of the creators. My name is Johnny Galvatron. I'm the writer and director of Mixtape. It's about three teenagers on their last day of high school going to their final party together, listening to the greatest mixtape of all time. And where did the idea for this game originally come from? Just wanting to make a game based around That's Good by Devo, which is the greatest song of all time. There's just something alive in that song that speaks to me. And it's very much a game about being a music lover and someone who appreciates music and knows where to place it in their life.

11:50And then game-wise, there are different kinds of mechanics. There's different kinds of music. There's different kind of art style. So the game as a whole should be viewed as a mixtape and kind of this artistry of arrangement. And so how is the game itself like a mixtape? So usually in a video game, you will have a standard set of mechanics, which might be fighting. But in a mixtape, there's different people saying different things with different vibes. And you want each song to be given its own experience, its own life.

12:22And you want to use the medium. That's what's kind of important about making video games. You want to use the medium to show what the music is showing. We have this song, BJ Thomas, most of all, where a friend gets betrayed and she floats back through town and just kind of knocks everything out of her way as she floats through town and you control her. And like, what a beautiful way to kind of use that song and to use a mechanic and input to show the betrayal and the despondency and the sadness. And when you can get all those things mixed together and hit those crescendos where you hit between video game, music, narrative, that's the gold, that's the diamond that you aim for.

12:59I think you would really dig it. Mixtape comes out May 7th on console and PC. Check it out at mixtape.game.

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Touring and Merchandise

15:10Okay, 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.

15:29And so I, you know, organized those and typed everything up and actually made it so he had all of his lyrics in one place. Things like that. For more than just the 69-level songs? Oh, for everything. For everything. Because Stephen Merritt also has all these other projects as well. Well, sure. There's the Future Bible Heroes. There's the Gothic Archies. And then he's done some things just under his own name. Yeah. And so all of that was under your purview. Oh, yes. You said you loved the lyrics and the jokes.

16:00What about the other aspects of the music? What I found most exciting was that there were all these different voices. Where is the madness that you promised me? There are men, but there are women, but they're different. Like, how many people are there? You know? It was this whole sort of panoply. 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.

16:44And there was such a range of actual music, too. Like, I loved how much of it there was. He was going to do 100. He was going to do 100, but then that seemed like too much, so he stopped at 69. At what point do you think you realized that this music was going to be braided into your life? 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.

17:18Come 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. To sell merch. Yes, to sell the merch. And to sort of be like a helper. And were you excited about this idea, or were you scared about the idea? Okay, so I was excited, trepidatious, but excited until we got there.

17:48And 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.

18:20And there was a cat who was on death's door. 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.

18:55Mike 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. 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.

19:26Right. And I loved it. And I loved the different ways they played songs over the years. In 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. 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.

20:07And 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. And when I asked Stephen to play at our wedding, he said, not the Book of Lover, it's only time.

20:42And 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. So 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, to which I responded, well, that's fine with me.

21:23I 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 wrote. 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?

21:44Yes. 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.

22:19And I think that we felt confident opening the bookstore because of those things. Like, we just knew that we'd be okay. Do you think that all those years of listening to the Magnetic Fields, not just listening, but like working so closely within that world, do you feel like there's an influence that comes from your relationship to the music? Well, you know, I have used Stephen's lyrics as epigraphs for not all of my novels, but most of them.

22:54Including American Fantasy. Including American Fantasy. And the line that is an epigraph for American Fantasy is, A pretty boy in his underwear. If there's anything better in this whole world, well, who cares?

23:14I 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.

23:46I 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. 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? 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.

24:23And it's because it's actually in my own voice, you know, like, from my point of view. And I was like, oh, 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 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.

24:55He's writing heartbreak and making it funny. What is your relationship with 69 Love Songs nowadays? 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. Do you mean any other album by Magnetic Fields? No, no, I mean any other record, period. Do you still listen to it? Do you still put it on? I do.

25:26And 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? We say, yes, it is.

25:49Visit 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 or Magic. They're having an event on May 29th. And, by the way, Love at the Bottom of the Sea is the album on which the Magnetic Fields song, Andrew and Drag, appears. And Stephen Merritt himself was a guest on Song Exploder,

26:19talking about the making of the song, Andrew and Drag, way back in 2015. It's a great episode. Please check it out. For more Key Change episodes, go to songexploder.net slash keychange. 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.

26:50If 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 slash shirt. I'm Rishikesh Hiraway. Thanks for listening.

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