Rats In The Garbage of The Western World

Stephin Merritt, Obscurities, September 2011
I'm glad the Magnetic Fields weren't around when I was a teenager; they may have done permanent damage to my self otherwise. I came to them pretty late, at the start of 2001, via one of their most famous songs, 100,000 Fireflies. His songs feel to me like good American short stories, full of humour and pathos. He apparently likes writing them in gay bars, often creating paeans to the men in his life he loved and lost.

Yesterday, I got in my head that I should find some 6ths music on iTunes (one of Stephin Merritt's side projects) when I stumbled upon this new release of B-sides and little known tracks. I was completely surprised to find that Rats in the Garbage of the Western World is a Magnetic Fields song. In the 90s I used to tape record a radio show every Wednesday night in Montreal called Solo For Two Voices, broadcast by students in McGill University. The presenters were frequently stoned and hardly ever told listeners what they were playing. I have so many much loved songs from that period whose authorship are waiting to be discovered, and this was one of them.  Listening to it again reminds me of walking through Montreal's snowdrifts on freezing days, a rucksack with university books on my back, heading to my solitary semi basement flat or a café to meet friends and chain smoke the day away.

So I went and bought the whole compilation last night just on the strength of that track. But who cares?  It's Stephen Merritt - of course the whole thing is good.