He briefly used the name The Baudelaire Memorial Orchestra as an attribution for a song written for Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, entitled "Scream and Run Away". Further music was recorded for the audiobook versions of the series and is attributed to The Gothic Archies.
Under his own name, he recorded and released the soundtracks to the films Eban and Charley and Pieces of April. The soundtrack to the late Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Pete & Pete featured many of his songs.
He and director Chen Shi-Zheng have collaborated on three pieces of musical theatre; Orphan of Zhao (2003), Peach Blossom Fan (2004), and My Life as a Fairy Tale (2005). Select tracks from these works have been released on Nonesuch Records under the title Showtunes.
Merritt is openly gay. His lyrics are known for bending and blurring the gender line; examples include the song When My Boy Walks Down The Street, sung by a male vocalist, which contains the lyric "and he's going to be my wife". He is fascinated with the undead, often making veiled or explicit references to vampires. Other frequent motifs in his lyrics include trains and railroads, the moon, dancing, eyes, and, of course, love.
Merritt has a Chihuahua named Irving, after Irving Berlin. He was raised Buddhist by his counter-culture mother. He attended the progressive Massachusetts high school, The Cambridge School of Weston and briefly attended NYU before moving back to Boston. He is a smoker, and is known to light a cigarette while performing on stage. He has worked as a copy editor for Spin Magazine and Time Out New York.
One of Merritt's most notable quirks is that, when interrupting his speech for thought, he does not use linguistic placeholders such as "uh" or "er" to indicate that he is not done speaking, but instead simply stops speaking. This leads many interviewers unfamiliar with this behavior to cut him off before he has finished answering a question.
In a September 2005 interview conducted by The Onion's AV Club, alternative rock musician Bob Mould was reminded of an interviewer who once referred to Mould as "the most depressed man in rock." Mould's response was, "He's never met Stephin Merritt, obviously."
All of This I Give You...
Stephin Merritt Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
You will be remembered.
You will die with honor for a child in danger.
What is taken from you is a life of sorrow.
All the birds of morning will be singing for you.
Stephin Merritt's song "All of This I Give You" is a deeply emotional ode to sacrifice and loss. The lyrics are somber and mournful, with references to death and danger interspersed throughout. The opening lines, "All of this I give you.../ You will be remembered," suggest that the singer is offering some sort of gift – perhaps a legacy or a memory – to someone they care about. The subsequent lines, "You will die with honor for a child in danger," indicate that the recipient of the gift will face a difficult and dangerous fate, but that they will be remembered for their bravery and selflessness.
The line "What is taken from you is a life of sorrow" speaks to the sacrifice that the recipient of the gift is making – presumably, they are giving up their own happiness or well-being for the sake of someone else. The final line, "All the birds of morning will be singing for you," suggests that despite the sadness of the situation, there is still a sense of hopefulness and beauty.
Line by Line Meaning
All of this I give you...
I offer everything that I possess to you without any expectation in return.
You will be remembered.
Your presence will leave an indelible mark on this world even after you're gone.
You will die with honor for a child in danger.
You will sacrifice your own life to protect a helpless child, earning the respect and admiration of all who know your story.
What is taken from you is a life of sorrow.
You have endured a lifetime of pain and hardships, and what is being taken from you will only add to that sorrow.
All the birds of morning will be singing for you.
Nature itself will recognize your selflessness and mourn your passing, as even the birds will offer a tribute to your memory with their songs.
Contributed by Maya I. Suggest a correction in the comments below.