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."
Maria Maria Maria
Stephin Merritt Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Right about now, your husband is raising Cain
It's not psychosis, it's just fear
But leave those roses here
Maria, maria, maria
Maria, maria, maria
Will I only love you from afar?
Maria, maria
Maria, maria, maria
Will you never know how beautiful you are?
When I said: "why can't we just be together?"
She waved goodbye, and walked across the heather
And then I took off my disguise
I wonder if she ever cries
I wonder if she ever knew
Her lover was her husband, too
Stephin Merritt's song "Maria Maria Maria" portrays a story of a man who is afraid to reveal his love for a woman named Maria. The lyrics suggest that Maria is already married to another man, and the singer's reticence is born out of the fear of being caught by Maria's husband raising "Cain" (a phrase meaning "creating a disturbance"). He realizes that he loves Maria from a distance, comparing the feeling to loving a star or a cloud. He wishes for her to know how beautiful she is, while questioning if she ever cried when he said he wished they were together.
The song's lyrics suggest a theme of unrequited love and the pain associated with keeping one's feelings hidden. The singer's fear of Maria's husband reveals a sense of cowardice, displaying his unwillingness to confront the situation directly. The use of cloud and star metaphors enhance the sense of distance between the singer and Maria, emphasizing the theme of unattainability.
Line by Line Meaning
You'd better go, or you'll be late for your train
You should leave now to avoid missing your train.
Right about now, your husband is raising Cain
Your husband is currently causing a commotion or disturbance.
It's not psychosis, it's just fear
Your unease is due to fear, not mental illness.
But leave those roses here
Don't take the roses with you when you go.
Maria, maria, maria
Repeatedly calling the name Maria for emphasis.
Will I only love you from afar?
Will I never be able to have a close, intimate relationship with you?
Like loving a cloud, loving a star?
Loving you seems as ethereal and unattainable as loving a cloud or star.
Maria, maria
Repeating the name Maria for emphasis.
Maria, maria, maria
Repeating the name Maria again for emphasis.
Will you never know how beautiful you are?
Will you never realize your own beauty?
When I said: "why can't we just be together?"
When I asked why we couldn't be in a relationship.
She waved goodbye, and walked across the heather
She said farewell and left, walking through the heather (flowers).
And then I took off my disguise
I revealed my true self, and stopped pretending to be someone else.
I wonder if she ever cries
I wonder if she ever sheds tears over what cannot be.
I wonder if she ever knew
I wonder if she suspected the truth about our relationship.
Her lover was her husband, too
I was not only her lover, but also her spouse.
Lyrics © ROUGH TRADE PUBLISHING
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