Stephin Merritt

The adventure is when people don't know what they're doing at all. Like, I think that the first pop band to use…

— Stephin Merritt

I gave up music criticism because of the increasingly obvious conflict of interest. I couldn't say anything bad about the records when…

— Stephin Merritt

Well, things hold up even if they sound dated. It can be very difficult to listen to 80s pop songs with really,…

— Stephin Merritt

There are only so many instruments you can layer on top of each other that aren't perfectly electronically programmed. "Long Vermont Roads"…

— Stephin Merritt

Popular music of the last 50 years has failed to keep in step with advances in musical theater, namely Stephen Sondheim. But…

— Stephin Merritt

Well, hardcore is so much about the body, in that you have to play as fast as possible. I'm not sure it…

— Stephin Merritt

I write songs by sitting around in bars, so drinking songs are a little obvious. It's surprising that I don't write entirely…

— Stephin Merritt

There's a whole kind of melancholy that you can only attain with reverb. That's an example of a technology introducing a whole…

— Stephin Merritt

You know, most love songs are not cheesy and corny. Most love songs are complaints, I think. Or about unrequited love, coming…

— Stephin Merritt

I don't think there are any clichés I try to avoid. As soon as I spot a cliché, I go for it.…

— Stephin Merritt

Okay, a truly great song is a song that makes its own aesthetic intentions clear and then lives up to them and…

— Stephin Merritt

If you want to write a love song, you need to not try to write it for a particular person in a…

— Stephin Merritt

My mother says I have boring percussion.

— Stephin Merritt

I can imagine lyrics becoming better written by smart machines rather than stupid musicians. Songwriters generally have nothing to say. They may…

— Stephin Merritt

Serious music isn't listened to in a casual setting. You don't want to listen to that in headphones on the subway.

— Stephin Merritt

Well, there are certainly original things to say. But I'm not sure that a pop song is the appropriate format to say…

— Stephin Merritt

“Some fall in love. I shatter.”

— Stephin Merritt

I'm not too sure if I have a very smart approach to revealing my life. Luckily, I doubt if many people really…

— Stephin Merritt

I would say that the evocative qualities of music are usually put there in post-production in the reverb. It's really not much…

— Stephin Merritt

“You stuttered like a kaleidoscope, because you knew too many words.”

— Stephin Merritt

That seems like one of the differences in expectations of "serious" and "popular" music that you can actually depend on the liner…

— Stephin Merritt

There's already a great deal to do writing the songs. And if I were completely in control of it, nobody would be…

— Stephin Merritt

Surf is that music which is entirely about evoking something. There's never any vocals, so it's not about the lyrics, it's about…

— Stephin Merritt

I don't remember things initially when listening to music. Like, I don't remember where I first heard a song, I don't have…

— Stephin Merritt

At first I was laboring under the impression that Chinese lyrics didn't rhyme. That turned out to be untrue - they don't…

— Stephin Merritt