"We are the rats in the garbage of the Western World/So let’s dance" sings Stephin Merritt on the well-named "Rats in the Garbage of the Western World," a hilariously touching tribute to The Cure that sounds like it was recorded with a Casio toy keyboard in a VW beetle. It's perfect, but not the best song on this set of Nineties rarities by a dude whose cast-offs trump most bands' masterworks: That'd be a tie between the drolly sincere ukelele marriage ballad "Forever and a Day" and a remake (w/ singer Susan Anway) of the Magnetic Fields classic "Take Ecstasy With Me." Yeah, he's a romantic; a cynic, too. But above all, a songwriter: brilliant, perverse, funny as human nature. Which is pretty damn funny.

Listen to "Forever and a Day":

“Youth Knows No Pain”

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”