You know you enthrall me...

My love affair with the 33⅓ series is only getting more intense. LD Beghtol's entry on 69 Love Songs just came in the mail and based on my initial browse, it might just be my favorite entry yet. It's a two part "field guide" to Stephin Merritt's opus; part one is a lexicon of all the major words, phrases and numbers found in the 69 songs. Part two is a song by song guide to the album, identifying the singer(s)/the song's key/BPM/genre, things to look for, and commentary from Stephin, other band members, critics, etc.

It's an insanely thorough and funny read. An example: I've always loved "Reno Dakota" from Volume 1, but I had no effing clue what was going on when Claudia sang "You know you enthrall me/and yet you don't call me/It's making me blue/Pantone 292." So, I flip to the handy lexicon, head to P and voila:

Pantone 292 (n) A rich sky blue, the color of Claudia's hopeless love for filmmaker Reno Dakota. Pantone, Inc. is the proud parent of the Pantone Matching System-- 1,114 standardized ink colors and process-color screen mixes created for graphic-designers and printers. Why shyly murmur "school bus yellow" when one can shout PMS 109, or dream of "Campbell's Soup made with milk" when one can demand PMS 180? According to [the song] Reno Dakota Blue is best approximated by PMS 292.

Yeah, I know there's always the Googles, but isn't it way more fun to have a handy little book all alphabetized and filled with neat anecdotes? (Like when the Bush reelection committee tried to license "Washington D.C." for an ad.) I think so.