It’s Sunday and I’m sat at my desk, supposedly trying to write various pieces of coursework and instead all I want to do is write about music. I really don’t know why I’m studying for a law degree sometimes. Do you think one day somebody might decide that the analytical skills I developed over the course of my degree would be perfect for a career in music journalism? I fear not.

Anyway during the past week of procrastination I watched the season finale/probable series finale of Scrubs and it was just as sickening as I expected, fantastic. There’s a bit near the end of J.D imagining possibilities for his future with some appropriately mushy song playing when to my horror I realised it was The Book of Love by the Magnetic Fields.

The ukulele has been replaced with a luscious string section and in place of the cynical (and fantastic) Stephen Merritt there is the too-serious tone of Peter Gabriel. Or so I discovered after a quick bit of web research

While I’m a little dismayed to actually be posting a Peter Gabriel track, I find it interesting. First of all, does this mean that somewhere Peter Gabriel is sat to listening to 69 Love Songs? Is he turning out sappy tracks like this after being inspired by Stephen Merritt? Surely not.

It doesn’t quite work; the lyrics are a little too cynical, too tongue-in-cheek, too wonderfully Stephen to ever coincide with the sentimentality provided by the new arrangement and at times it feels jarring. However there are rare moments when it feels like it could be a Peter Gabriel original, those last 2 lines in each verse…they work perfectly.

The book of love is long and boring
No one can lift the damn thing
It’s full of charts and facts and figures
And instructions for dancing
But I, I love it when you read to me
And you, you can read me anything

The book of love has music in it
In fact, that’s where music comes from
Some of it is just transcendental
Some of it is just really dumb, but
I, I love it when you sing to me, and
You, you can sing me anything

The book of love is long and boring
And written very long ago
It’s full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes
And things we’re all too young to know, but
I, I love it when you give me things
And you, you ought to give me wedding rings

MP3 The Magnetic Fields |

MP3 Peter Gabriel |

(I’ve been informed that there’s also a cover of this by Now It’s Overhead but I’m afraid that I don’t have a copy to share with you.)