Merritt feels there is nothing new or groundbreaking in popular music these days. "There needs to be a new technology," he said. "That's usually when that happens. Robotics would be great. If we could have an easily used robot guitar, for example, we could do lots of nifty things that have not been done. Computer-assisted songwriting would also be great." And, on queue: "For example, Björk could write a line and then be presented with something that rhymed with it. Great for people who don't speak English all that well." Satisfied smile.

He may have turned it into a joke, but I don't think Merritt was kidding when he said that computer-assisted songwriting would be great. He seems to have very little sympathy for the position that is so natural to most of us: that human care, creativity and, yes, frailty, are at the very core of what makes art moving. Talking about live performance, he said, "It's a pretty dull record that can be played live. Except maybe solo piano music. But even then, why not, using editing, get the perfect performance on the piano, that you'd never be able to replicate live? À la Glenn Gould." He said this as if it were an entirely obvious, universally accepted position. Which it is not. For every Glenn Gould and Emerson String Quartet, who edit takes together in the studio to achieve the "perfect" performance, there's a Rubinstein or a Schiff who would prefer to leave a few imperfections. I'm firmly on the Rubinstein side (although I'm entirely unsympathetic to the bogus arguments used to support it, most of them involving the dubious concept of "authenticity").

With my Luddite hackles raised by this and a few of Merritt's other comments (he's enthusiastic about the development of computerized singing), I wound up asking a genuinely ridiculous question: "Would you want a world in which everyone played perfectly metronomical drumbeats all the time?" Merritt paused to bask in the full absurdity of the question, and then, smiling, his voice more animated than at any other time during our conversations, answered, "Yes! Yes, I would!"

I think that Merritt's general preference for automation is related to something people hear in his music: the most frequent criticism of Merritt is that his music is cold. While I hear what they are talking about, that's not the way I experience the music. Stephin Merritt is a romantic who hides his romanticism, equally ineffectively, behind irony, wit, the synth-pop sheen of his productions, and his unfailingly jaded worldview.

But there are signs that Merritt may be shedding the disguise. "i" is a disappointing album, with a few great tracks and a lot of lackluster filler. But the album's final song, "It's Only Time," is my favorite he's ever written and, I was surprised and pleased to discover, his as well. And there's nothing conditional about it. It's an unabashedly romantic, heartbreakingly beautiful song. It's a declaration of eternal love, that begins "Why would I stop loving you/ One hundred years from now/ It's only time," and ends, "I'll walk your lands/ And swim your seas/ Marry me. And in your hands/ I will be free/ Marry me."

But even in discussing this song, Merritt remained cynical. I said that it seemed unusually optimistic for one of his songs. He replied "I see a lot of darkness in it. The declaration of love no matter what happens is, in the real world, a really bad idea. Marriage involves a sort of slavery. I don't think a good song can be a purely happy song. 'Zippedy-doo-da,' it's a great song, because no one in the world can hear it without irony. I wish I had written it."

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