From interview in the Onion with Stephen Merritt of the band The Magnetic Fields:

“I think the first album shows me as an aspiring surrealist, which for some reason I totally lost interest in. Since then, I think I’m an aspiring storyteller, I guess. But I’ve realized more and more that you don’t have to have very many ingredients to imply that there’s a story, without actually telling it. [You can give] the listener an impression of the story without it necessarily being there. It’s like pointillism, or cartooning, or caricature. It’s like a lot of things…”  

If you don’t know The Magnetic Fields, worth checking out; their triple album 69 Love Songs has some great stuff.