Aside from the mountains of books and CDs, his apartment is crammed with guitars, ukuleles, banjos, keyboards, computers and percussion, from Gretsch drums to a rain stick."Sometimes if I'm getting stuck I'll have someone in to the studio to play a part for me," he says, quietly, almost bored But if you let him speak, he'll always continue. While Merritt's witty in song, and thoughtful in person, the most biting thing about him is his pooch, which was named after Irving Berlin.Stephin Merritt - the Stephin was one of several slight pseudonyms he used to track his junk mail, and it stuck - used to have about 25 feet of vinyl but moved so much he one day decided to have a moving sale and got rid of it. No regrets, because CDs leave more room for musical instruments."A song can take 20 minutes to write, or 10 years," he murmurs. The 27-second snatch that opens CD 2, for instance, "Roses", was a lyric that had been hanging around in his head for years.

"I'd written a lot of other verses for 'Roses', but I threw them all away. The four lines are the best possible presentation of the song."Another classic came from the heat of a moment. "We were driving in the south somewhere past all these religious billboards - Praise Jesus and all that," says his keyboardist/band manager Claudia Gonson. "We thought, we just have to write something really blasphemous, and Stephin started singing: 'He is my Lord, he is my saviour,/ And he rewards my good behaviour,/My secret soul, I know he's seen it/ He says Come here baby and kiss me like you mean it.'" Sung in a faux Tammy twang by guest Shirley Simms, it's a masterpiece of simplicity and forked desire.Almost every song contains some element of humour ("I never try not to be funny" he says), but predicting where it'll come, and in what form, is impossible.

One song, for example - "Washington DC" - is a sublime profession of love. Over a snare drum intro, then plinky piano and guitar, the cheerleader vocals go "Washington DC/ It's the paradise to me/ It's not because it is the grand old seeeeat/ Of precious freedom and democracy no no no,/ It's not the greenery turning gold, in fall/ The scenery circling the Mall/ It's just that's where my baby lives, that's all."Merritt has said that all his love songs are about writing love songs, but there is nothing yawn-inducing about this man's postmodernism It is absorbed Natural It works because he has the dexterity to keep you guessing. Indeed the very next track bounces in like an Erasure song, complete with Andy Bell vocals. Along with his zithers and tin whistles, Merritt also loves squelchy synth sounds from the 1980s.Of his low, low voice, which he can pump full of drama when he wants to, Merritt tells me: "I'm not particularly influenced by Joy Division or Leonard Cohen or Nick Cave or Johnny Cash, the people my voice sounds like." One branch of his influences stems from a seminal summer when he was 15.