The Book of Love (The Magnetic Fields song)
| "The Book of Love" | |
|---|---|
| Song by The Magnetic Fields from the album 69 Love Songs | |
| Released | September 7, 1999 |
| Recorded | April 1999 at Polar West, Mother West, Polar Mother, and Sonics |
| Genre | Indie rock, indie pop, lo-fi, baroque pop |
| Length | 2:42 |
| Label | Merge |
| Writer(s) | Stephin Merritt |
| "The Book of Love / Not One of Us" | |
|---|---|
| Single by Peter Gabriel / Stephin Merritt | |
| from the album 'Scratch My Back / And I'll Scratch Yours' | |
| Released | 30 January 2010 |
| Recorded | 2009 |
| Length | The Book of Love (3:53) "Not One of Us" (3:58) |
| Writer(s) | Peter Gabriel (Not One of Us) |
| The Book of Love EP | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| EP by Gavin James | |
| Released | March 23, 2015 |
| Recorded | 2014-15 |
| Length | 14:21 |
| Label | Good Soldier / Believe Sony (distribution) |
| "The Book of Love" | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Gavin James | ||||||||||
| from the album Bitter Pill | ||||||||||
| Released | January 2, 2015 | |||||||||
| Format | CD single, digital download | |||||||||
| Recorded | 2014 | |||||||||
| Length | 3:15 | |||||||||
| Label | Good Soldier / Believe | |||||||||
| Writer(s) | Stephin Merritt | |||||||||
| Gavin James singles chronology | ||||||||||
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"The Book of Love" is a song written by Stephin Merritt and attributed to The Magnetic Fields, an American indie pop group founded and led by him. "The Book of Love" appears in Magnetic Fields' three-volume concept album 69 Love Songs containing 69 tracks described as "love songs", 23 tracks in each of the three volumes. The three-volume release was released in 1999 with "the Book of Love" appearing in volume 1 as track number 12.
The song proved hugely popular and has been subject to various interpretations and recordings by musical artists, bands and sung by choirs in various arrangements. It is also increasingly played at engagements and weddings.
It was covered by the American indie band The Airborne Toxic Event in the live album All I Ever Wanted: Live from Walt Disney Concert Hall featuring Calder Quartet. The live recording was released on Island Def Jam Records.
The Croatian musicians 2Cellos recorded an instrumental version on their album In2ition.
When The Magnetic Fields appeared at The Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith in January 2001 to play the whole of 69 Love Songs, they were joined by Peter Gabriel for an encore of "The Book of Love". He subsequently recorded the song for the soundtrack of the 2004 movie Shall We Dance.
Gabriel's version also appeared on his Scratch My Back album in 2010. Gabriel originally intended to release Scratch My Back and And I'll Scratch Yours simultaneously. However, as completion of the latter dragged out, it was instead decided to release a series of double A-sided singles with one song from each album every new full moon during 2010 on iTunes. The first of such singles was actually "The Book of Love" — Gabriel's cover of a Magnetic Fields song, together with "Not One of Us" — Stephin Merritt's (The Magnetic Fields' frontman) cover of a Peter Gabriel song. The double A side single "The Book of Love" / "Not One of Us" was released on 30 January 2010., on the day of January 2010's full moon.
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