from "All My Little Words" by the Magnetic Fields
Now that you've made me want to die
You tell me that you're unboyfriendable
And I could make you pay and pay
But I could never make you stay
Stephin Merritt is wordy, even by the standards of an indie rock songwriter. I doubt that Conor Oberst could pull off a five-syllable neologism, with the emphasis delicately placed upon the third, antepenultimate syllable.
The Magnetic Fields like to play with gender identity even within the confines of a conventional, Cole Porter-esque ditty. The fact that the speaker of this quatrain is gay makes "unboyfriendable" ambiguous. Is "to boyfriend" someone to convert them to a boyfriend, or to become their boyfriend? Could a straight man--an irresponsible party animal, say--be "ungirlfriendable?" Either way, Merritt's yearning will continue unabated.
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