The Magnetic Fields Announces New 5xEP Album Quickies for May 2020 Release and Shares Video for “The Day The Politicians Died”

The Magnetic Fields will be releasing a new series of songs titled Quickies, which will be released across five vinyl EPs on May 15 via Nonesuch. Each of these 28 new songs will be under three minutes long, and are written by the band’s principal songwriter and vocalist Stephin Merritt.

One of these new tracks “The Day The Politicians Died” has been released, and is accompanied with a music video featuring vintage visuals from the early half of the 20th century. The track is sharply satirical and is accompanied solely by the band’s vocals and a single piano, as the lyrics express joy over politicians eventually dying.

Merritt explained that his work on 101 Two-Letter Words, which discusses the shortest words you can use in the boar game Scrabble, inspired this project. “I’ve been reading a lot of very short fiction, and I enjoyed writing 101 Two-Letter Words, the poetry book about the shortest words you can use in Scrabble,” Merritt explained. “And I’ve been listening to a lot of French baroque harpsichord music. Harpsichord doesn’t lend itself to languor. So I’ve been thinking about one instrument at a time, playing for about a minute or so and then stopping, and I’ve been thinking of narratives that are only a few lines long.”

The Magnetic Fields are an experimental pop group who have released a total of ten studio albums since 1991. Their most recent studio album project titled 50 Song Memoir was released back in 2017. The band are currently set to host a series of intimate City Winery shows across the country this year.

Quickies

01 Castles of America
02 The Biggest Tits in History
03 The Day the Politicians Died
04 Castle Down a Dirt Road
05 Bathroom Quickie
06 My Stupid Boyfriend
07 Love Gone Wrong
08 Favorite Bar
09 Kill a Man a Week
10 Kraftwerk in a Blackout
11 When She Plays the Toy Piano
12 Death Pact (Let’s Make A)
13 I’ve Got a Date with Jesus
14 Come, Life, Shaker Life!
15 (I Want to Join A) Biker Gang
16 Rock ‘n’ Roll Guy
17 You’ve Got a Friend in Beelzebub
18 Let’s Get Drunk Again (And Get Divorced)
19 The Best Cup of Coffee in Tennessee
20 When the Brat Upstairs Got a Drum Kit
21 The Price You Pay
22 The Boy in the Corner
23 Song of the Ant
24 I Wish I Had Fangs and a Tail
25 Evil Rhythm
26 She Says Hello
27 The Little Robot Girl
28 I Wish I Were a Prostitute Again