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The Magnetic Fields “We Are Having A Hootenanny”

A lot of Stephin Merritt’s songs are clever jokes. He owes a lot to musical theater, obviously, but his niche in contemporary culture is often more along the lines of being the audio equivalent of a gag comic in The New Yorker. “We Are Having A Hootenanny” is Merritt as his most absurd, an aggressively cheerful invitation to party where the only barrier to entry is taking a personality quiz. You can pick this apart in a few different ways — maybe this Merritt’s way of making fun of the internet, or it could be a more pointed barb at the way subcultures claim to be “inclusive” as long as everyone matches the same personality profile. It might just be a good excuse for the entire band to comically over-enunciate the letter z at the end of the word “quiz”.

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