The Magnetic Fields' '100,000 Fireflies' Sounds The Way Being Lonely Feels
Susan Anway, the singer on The Magnetic Fields' early albums, died this month. For many, her legacy is the remarkable "100,000 Fireflies," a desolate love song that finds the comfort in emptiness.
It starts with the kind of lyric you might expect near a song's end, a revelation so devastating that many songwriters would feel obliged to spend several minutes earning it first: "I have a mandolin / I play it all night long / It makes me want to kill myself." But this is where The Magnetic Fields' "" begins, and its casual, matter-of-fact delivery of bad news does not relent. The music is skeletal, just a drum machine and some synthesized scaffolding, and it makes an icy bed for the beautiful, solitary voice guiding the listener through "the worst night I ever had." On this night, we learn, she has captured those titular light-up insects to keep her company, only to be reminded of the "starry
