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

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

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, visit songexploder.net/emma-straub.

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. This is Key Change, where I talk to fascinating people about the music that changed their lives. And my guest today is the best-selling 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 little bit of the book. 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. 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. Do 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? That they were amazing. They were incredible. Stephen Merritt is 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 more about that. I want to 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. 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 Derrida. You know, it was like, oh, something smart that I probably can't understand.

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? 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, it no longer exists, but they had an incredible. jukebox and they had all three of the CDs in the jukebox. What I found most exciting was that Stevens' lyrics, they are brilliant. And there are so many jokes, punctuation jokes, English language jokes. Word nerd jokes.

And I quickly read. 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. 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. And 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 extent? of that particular kind of love. It felt, yeah, I mean, it felt related because there were certainly a lot of sadness and longing, et cetera.

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. 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 Bleacher

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 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 tired. tiny and we were like, you know, four feet away from them. And it was transcendently 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 him fall in love 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.

Well, my father, my father was a very large man. Stephen 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. Bechtall,

who's one of the singers on 69 Love Songs. Now that you've made me want to die, you tell me that you're unborn. He 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? And 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

nobody wanted to publish them but I wrote them nonetheless and I just kept trying So in the moment when you raise your hand saying I could take this job Yeah 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. And I just loved the idea of being around Steve. 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 Stevens 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. My only previous job had been, like, an assistant in public. 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 Emisdrob continues after this. Okay, so I started working from 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 moleskin notebooks. And 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 69-11 songs? Oh, for everything, for everything.

Because Stephen Merritt also has all these other projects. 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.

What 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 promise 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. And 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. 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. To sell merch. Yeah, 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, trepidacious, 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. 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, 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. 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. And I wrote about it. 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 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 the 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 god. Arthur Archie's 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. 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 pure. 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? 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 or 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. 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, I have used Stevens lyrics as epigraphs for not all of my novels, but most of them. Including 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? 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. 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. 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'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. He'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 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 Feas? No, no, I mean any other record, period.

Do you still listen to it? Do you still put it on? I do. And what I love is when we are listening to music in a less, you know, like album-driven, 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.

Visit Emma's website, Emma Straub.com. 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 Field song Andrew and Drag appears. And Stephen Merritt himself was a guest on Song Exploder talking about the making of the song Andrew and Drag way back in 2015. It's a great episode. Please check it out.

change episodes, go to songexploder.net slash keychange. This episode was produced by me, Craig Ely and Mary Dolan, with production assistants 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 atradotopia.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 SongExploder shirt at SongExploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi Kesh hereway. Thanks for listening. I wanted to tell you about a big year-long series from this day, a history podcast here at

Radiotopia. 2026 is America's 250th birthday. And over at this day, they are in the middle of a big series called 50 Weeks that shaped America. They're doing deep dives every week on the stories from 250 years of U.S. history that brought us to this very complicated moment. Some of them are new perspectives on huge moments like the Civil War or Prohibition, and others are less discussed stories that still had a massive impact, like the Transcontinental Railroad or the so-called hardhat riots of the 1970s. So as we head to the 4th of July and beyond, this is a great time to start listening to the podcast if you aren't already. Check out This Day. Go to Thisdaypod.com, or find this day wherever you get your podcasts.