The Magnetic Fields - I Don't Believe in the Sun

"I don't believe in the sun. How can it shine down on everyone ... and never shine on me."

Album: 69 Love Songs [6th album]
Genre: Indie Folk
Recorded: 
Album Release: September 7th 1999
Single Release:
Length: 4:17
Producer: Stephin Merritt
Vocalist: Stephin Merritt
Label: Merge Records

Official Audio

Charts, Streams & Sales

Spotify: Over 2.5 million
YouTube Music: Over 900 thousand
NME's All Time Greatest Albums [2021]: #213
Rolling Stone's All Time Greatest Albums [2020]: #406

Instruments

Bass, drums, guitar, piano

Details

• 'I Don't Believe in the Sun' is, on the surface, a depressing breakup song. It takes the morose lyricism of the freshly heartbroken to new heights through the inclusion of such nuggets as "the moon to whom the poets croon has given up and died, astronomy will have to be revised" and "it's night-time all day and it's usually raining too." As if permanent night wasn't bad enough.
  
  The simplicity of the lyrics are a deliberate attempt to parody the uneding deluge of songs about love and heartbreak that dominate the charts. The excessive length of '69 Love Songs' works to the same end, as if the songwriter is proving how easy it is to write such records.
  
  
• '69 Love Songs' is an album about love songs instead of love. Some of them are autobiographical, but most are a playful take on the form that require a sense of humour to appreciate. People have a tendency to think of beautiful people when it comes to falling in love because our ideals are formed when we're young and no-one dreams of marrying the unfortunately faced. While beauty is more than skin-deep, it's a sad truism that the good-looking are rarely without a date come Friday night.
  
  It's inherently funny then to see a sad, dumpy middle-aged guy singing about loving another sad, dumpy middle-aged guy because it's so far removed from our expectations. Like a man swimming in the ocean while wearing a suit, something about it doesn't add up and we laugh despite ourselves. However, the laughter, or derision, is the point.
  
  The love songs on '69 Love Songs', even the title has an unserious, comedic edge, are a mask for a good-hearted mockery of the straight-forward, basic, ever-present genre. There are endless songs that rhyme "love" with "sent from above", or "heart" with "keep us apart", for example, or some other platitude, while unironically presenting themselves as deep works of emotional connection.  It's the sort of thing which can draw the ire of the jaded and unlucky and is fun to laugh at every now and then.
  
  People who don't like the album see it as cynical sneering that derides the work of others, while those who do take it as a spoof that lambasts the cliches of the overdone love song. Whatever way you look at it, the album displays good songwriting and musicianship throughout.
  
  
• Stephin Merritt wrote the album in a dingy gay bar in New York called Dick's. Dick's is a great name for a gay bar, which is probably the point, but maybe it was just owned by a guy called Richard.
  
  
• '69 Love Songs' was inspired by the theatrical works of Stephen Sondheim.
  
  
• The album cover features a prominent 6 and a 9 next to each other. The numbers, are, of course, a mirror image. This is a, perhaps unintentional, visual representation of the albums core meaning, that it's the same but different. The albums is love songs, or songs about love songs, but not as you're used to hearing them. They are love songs ... but different.
  
  

Artwork