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."
At Madam Plum
Stephin Merritt Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Blood might get on your shoes
Please don't track it in though
Thank you
We've all read the news
Outside, it's drums and trumpets
But here, it's tea and crumpets
Where everybody comes
We watch the world decay
And dance the night away
Here at madam plum's
Their trumpets and their drums
Are hardly ever heard
And war is just a word
It may be raining fire
But here, we don't enquire
We find it necessary
To take a spot of sherry
And so we find a very
Secluded sanctuary
Way down in the slums
We step over the bums
Behind the liquor store
To find the hidden door
Down at madam plum's
We spend fantastic sums
And all our idle hours
Admiring the flowers
Here at madam plum's
We grow chrysanthemums
Of every size and kind
However you're inclined...
Here at madam plum's
Where everybody comes
We watch the world decay
And dance the night away
Here at madam plum's
Their trumpets and their drums
Are hardly every heard
And war is just a word
The lyrics of Stephin Merritt's song "At Madam Plum" describe an alternate reality, where the world outside is consumed by chaos, war, and destruction, but inside Madam Plum's establishment, it's a completely different story. The song brings up themes of escapism, luxury, and surrealism. Merritt creates imagery of bloodshed and chaos outside the window, urging the visitor to be careful not to let the blood on their shoes. He makes sure to thank them in advance for their consideration. It's as if Madam Plum's is the last refuge from the chaos and they don't want it to be disrupted.
Merritt contrasts the chaos with the tranquillity inside Madam Plum's establishment. There's tea and crumpets, sherry, and chrysanthemums of every size and kind, providing a sense of luxury that's almost surreal. He describes it as a "secluded sanctuary" where all their "idle hours" are spent. It's almost as if Madam Plum's is an escape from reality, a place to forget about the troubles of the outside world. The visitors dance the night away while the outside world decays, and the sound of the war is nothing more than a distant word. The song seems to suggest that people need places like Madam Plum's to escape from the reality of the world outside sometimes.
Line by Line Meaning
Just outside this window
Right beyond these panes of glass
Blood might get on your shoes
There may be violence close by
Please don't track it in though
But do your best not to bring it inside here
Thank you
I'd appreciate it
We've all read the news
The world isn't in great shape
Outside, it's drums and trumpets
There's chaos, conflict, and war going on
But here, it's tea and crumpets
But in here, we can try to forget about it all
Here at madam plum's
This is Madam Plum's establishment
Where everybody comes
Many people visit here
We watch the world decay
We witness the decline of society
And dance the night away
And yet we still try to enjoy ourselves
Their trumpets and their drums
The sounds of war
Are hardly ever heard
Are muffled, muted, or quite distant
And war is just a word
The horrors of warfare are just an abstract concept
It may be raining fire
There may be destruction raining down
But here, we don't enquire
But we try not to think about it
We find it necessary
We need to do this
To take a spot of sherry
We have a drink to calm our nerves
And so we find a very
This leads us to discover a particularly
Secluded sanctuary
Hidden refuge
Way down in the slums
Deep within the poorest parts of town
We step over the bums
As we make our way to our haven, we ignore the homeless
Behind the liquor store
Behind the alcohol seller's establishment
To find the hidden door
To access the secret entrance
Down at madam plum's
Once inside Madam Plum's
We spend fantastic sums
We splurge on this luxury
And all our idle hours
And much of our free time
Admiring the flowers
We enjoy the beauty around us
Here at madam plum's
At Madam Plum's business
We grow chrysanthemums
We cultivate various forms of beauty
Of every size and kind
In many different forms and shapes
However you're inclined...
No matter what your tastes may be
Contributed by Colton K. Suggest a correction in the comments below.