{"id":61,"date":"2011-03-06T22:23:43","date_gmt":"2011-03-06T22:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/?p=61"},"modified":"2016-11-20T18:50:53","modified_gmt":"2016-11-20T18:50:53","slug":"magnetic-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/an-appreciation\/magnetic-powers\/","title":{"rendered":"Magnetic Powers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Friend of the WP <a href=\"http:\/\/juliakennedy.tumblr.com\/\">Julia Kennedy<\/a> recently posted this video on a certain popular social networking site, and it took me back.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ci37lvMsTsA\" width=\"480\" height=\"390\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The earliest WP recordings contained a lot of blatant, shameless Stephin Merritt-isms. I recall once spending a large portion of a European trip trying to rewrite a melodic line to hide the influence of the Luna song I&#8217;d stolen it from, only to realize after it had been recorded and released that the whole song was a total Magnetic Fields ripoff (that also contained a completely unchanged Guided by Voices riff, but I digress).<\/p>\n<p>I have to admit I haven&#8217;t kept up too much with Merritt&#8217;s output in recent years, but the early albums are brilliant.<\/p>\n<p>This song has some of my favourite lyrics. He goes from this in the first verse:<\/p>\n<p><em>On a Ferris wheel<br \/>\nLooking out on Coney island<br \/>\nUnder more stars than<br \/>\nThere are prostitutes in Thailand<br \/>\nOur hair in the air<br \/>\nOur lips blue from cotton candy<br \/>\nWhen we kiss it feels<br \/>\nLike a flying saucer landing<\/em><\/p>\n<p>to this in the second:<\/p>\n<p><em>In Las Vegas where<br \/>\nThe electric bills are staggering<br \/>\nThe decor hog wild<br \/>\nAnd the entertainment saccharine<br \/>\nWhat a golden age<br \/>\nWhat a time of right and reason<br \/>\nThe consumer&#8217;s king<br \/>\nAnd unhappiness is treason<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Awesome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friend of the WP Julia Kennedy recently posted this video on a certain popular social networking site, and it took me back. The earliest WP recordings contained a lot of blatant, shameless Stephin Merritt-isms. I recall once spending a large portion of a European trip trying to rewrite a melodic line to hide the influence &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/an-appreciation\/magnetic-powers\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Magnetic Powers&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[221],"tags":[28,25,27,26],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-an-appreciation","tag-julia-kennedy","tag-magnetic-fields","tag-nostalgia","tag-stephin-merritt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}