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."
Tiny Flying Player Pianos
Stephin Merritt Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Carried aloft on the breeze
As evening falls, they hang beneath the eaves
I hear their tinkling cacophony
Til one by one, they sleep
Oh, if only I could sleep...
The first two lines of Stephin Merritt’s “Tiny Flying Player Pianos” convey a whimsical image of tiny pianos floating through the air, a surreal scene that separates the listener from the mundane world. The sound of the tiny player pianos is so enchanting that the singer calls it a “tinkling cacophony.” The use of “cacophony” may seem strange; however, it is used to describe an unpleasant noise or clamor. However, “tinkling” contradicts the sense of chaos typically associated with a cacophony. It’s as if the singer is both charmed and repelled by the noise.
The last two lines of the song are particularly poignant. The singer admits that they are unable to sleep, which is juxtaposed with the tiny pianos, which have "sleep" personified onto them. The tiny pianos become a metaphor for sleep, something that seems always out of reach for the singer, although it is able to be accessed by these small objects. This line speaks to the longings we all have for something that seems unattainable, whether it's sleep, love, or happiness. The song is wrapped in a sense of wistfulness and a feeling of longing that is universal.
Line by Line Meaning
Tiny flying player pianos
Small automated pianos are flying through the air.
Carried aloft on the breeze
They float through the sky with the help of the wind.
As evening falls, they hang beneath the eaves
As night approaches, they perch under the roof overhang.
I hear their tinkling cacophony
I can hear the chaotic sound of their music.
Til one by one, they sleep
Eventually, each piano falls asleep and becomes silent.
Oh, if only I could sleep...
The singer wishes they could also find rest like the pianos.
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