does anyone still like Belle and Sebastian?

What does this new song sound like?

Also, I have never heard 'In The Country'. What is it really like?

I think I must still like Belle & Sebastian.

the new single is terrific

"In the country" goes:

Baaa
ba ba ba baaaa
ba ba ba baaaa
ba ba ba baaaa

"Your Cover's Blown" is the worst single of 2004.

There's a credit on the single sleeve: "A tip of the hat to the Shadows". (As the Shads backed Cliff on "In The Country".)

Tip of the hat, indeed. The sauce!

out in the country innit?

Pf it's the one that goes "you're going to find me, out in the country" and going on about it's where the weather's fine etc

I have never heard it.

Are you people saying that B&S are releasing a new song, as a new single?

The other day, on the Ross show, they talked about Ken Bruce. Did you hear it?

Do keep up. It's a double A side. One old, one new.

Do keep up. It's an EP. One old, three new.

I thought the "In The Country" melody was a deliberate, knowing lift - a homage, if you will. See also "Ashes To Ashes" bassline. I figured this was their Definitely Maybe - "we're so saturated with the methylated spirit of pop, it just oozes out of us," as Noel Gallagher never said.

A thing I don't get is: how does everyone else know this track 'In The Country', when I don't?

It's advertised as 'Wrapped Up In Books' / ' Your Cover's Blown'. I'm sure there are rubby extra tracks too, but it was the talk of the two lead tracks that was confounding the pinefox.

pinefox - I don't know it either.

Yes, it was.

Wow!

Yes, PF, I heard them talking about Ken Bruce.

PF, you probably know it as an old DFS furniture superstore advert from the 1970s. Their shops were so big they had to locate them 'out in the country'.

Let me see if I can find the lyrics. It's a good song by Cliff standards, or indeed any standards. Maybe it's time for a Cliff revival:
------------------------------------
In The Country

When the world in which you're living
Gets a bit too much to bear
And you need someone to lean on
When you look there's no one there

You're gonna find me out in the country, yeah
You're gonna find me way out in the country
Where the air is good, and the day is fine
And a pretty girl has her hand in mine
And the silver stream is the poor man's wine
In the country, in the country

If you're walkin' in the city
And you're feelin' rather small
And the people on the sidewalk
Seem to form a solid wall

You're gonna find me, hey, out in the country
You're gonna find me, hey, out in the country
Where the air is good and the day is fine
And a pretty girl has her hand in mine
And the silver stream is the poor man's wine
In the country, in the country

Hurry, hurry, hurry
For time is slipping by, you don't need a ticket
It belongs to you and I, come on and join me, hey
Out in the country

Where the air is good, and the day is fine
And the pretty girl has her hand in mine
And the silver stream is the poor man's wine
In the country, in the country
------------------------------
It's a bit like The Housemartins. And a bit like Blur. The Farmers Boys did a cover version.

That Sir Cliff owes me big time: http://www.nodata.org/honey/sinister/mhonarc/200306/msg00023.html

I still like Belle And Sebastian a lot, despite liking fewer and fewer of their recent songs. I think I quite like 'Your Cover's Blown'. Luckily it is nothing like the nme's "Indie Bohemian Rhapsody" remark.

"I see a little silhouetto of a bike"

Wow: spotter's badge for Mooro!

> A thing I don't get is: how does everyone else know this track 'In The Country', when I don't?

i'm way more familiar with the farmers boys version, doubt i've heard cliff's more than twice.

amazon.de to the rescue

I am listening to 'Pocketbook Angel'.

It's a fabulous lost track, save that it's not wholly lost.

I am listening to what may be ... THE BLACK SESSIONS, on tape? The track now is 'London Has Let Me Down, Again'. Something that we forget, maybe, is how many tracks - extras like this - that they have done, in all.

Like 'Nothing In The Silence'!

I really don't like 'Hurley's Having Dreams'.

But I like 'Rhoda', if that's what it is called.

It looks like nobody still likes Belle & Sebastian.

I do, and really enjoyed the new single when it came out, but it just kinda gets on my nerves now. too precious. (though admittedly probably more to do with my summer mood and current listening habits than anything else)

i dont like the new single at all, but i do still like a lot of the old stuff, going from consistent to fairly scattered as time went on...

Oooh, EVERYBODY loves Belle and Sebastian (except for about two thirds of ILM...).

I didn't buy the new single, even with a B-Side I haven't heard, and that says a lot. 'Nothing In The Silence', on the other hand, is a beautiful, beautiful song and would have sat nicely on the new album in place of so many others I could mention.

'Landslide' is not very good - the breathiest performance I can recall by anyone since, or before, Carol Decker.

I've been listening to them a lot lately; all the albums, in fact, incl. 'Fold your hands...', which has enough classic songs to make it worth my while to skip though the bad ones.

Yeah, I still like B&S. It helps that I only started listening to them in 2001, and so missed all the cult stuff.

I still like Belle and Sebastian. And I like "Hurley's Having Dreams", though it's not one of their finer moments.

You aren't listening to the Black Sessions. Well, maybe you are, but you must be listening to some other stuff too.

I only really started enjoying B&S via Dear Catastrophe Waitress, which is wonderful. It sort of helped me get into their older work.

I like them.

I got dragged along to their Melbourne show by a friends girlfriend (she promised to pay for drinks). Anyway, I got nice and sloshed beforehand, and kept yelling out for 'The Loneliness of the Middle Distance Runner', which is their only song I really like. The people in front of me started a petition to get me kicked out, and I was, but five minutes later I was back in with smuggled beer and vodka.

So, er, fuck their fans, I thought it was meant to be a fucking rock concert.

Is this thread just supposed to be some sort of big fucking joke!?!??

it's a very depressing one.

Well, maybe.

'Landslide' with Sarah singing would be good.

I had not heard the song, or indeed heard of it before I got the Fans Only DVD.

I was singing/humming it for weeks afterwards.

This must count for something.

'Landslide' sounds like B&S covering the Spice Girls.

Surprisingly, this isn't such a bad thing.

I think it sounds Phil Spectorish, and that sound was also an influence on the Spice Girls, so in that sense you're right.

Perhaps. But it also sounds JUST like the Spice Girls singing 'Stop'

There's the part where they sing something like 'la la la too fast/ la la la won't last' when the next line could very easily be 'Stop right now, thank you very much..'

I'm always a little disappointed that it isn't.

> 'London Has Let Me Down, Again', 'Hurley', 'Pocketbook Angel'

as ailsa said, those aren't Black Sessions but really early unreleased demos that, er, somehow got leaked into the public domain by unscrupulous bootleggers with probable links to terrorism...

Have I got them? Oh I wish Mooro was here...

Wasn't 'Landslide' originally done with Evie Sands? It would have been a belter.

Somebody ought to cover "The Magic of a Kind Word" seeing as B&S obv. won't release it now. I know N. disagrees with me about this song. He described it as "rubbishy" IIRC.

I miss N.

he's in a better place now.

I didn't realise Landslide had been done in the studio - only live I thought.

I've seen London has let me down et al tacked on to a few black sessions (which is Paris iirc) tapes.

Magic of a kind word is pretty crappy though

I've heard the Evie Sands version once only - Beanz played it at a Divine after show party. I think Mooro went and asked him who it was, and he said "Evie Sands" and also that it was likely to be released at some point. Has it ever been?

I don't think so. One for the box set, perhaps.

I know not Evie Sands.

The version I was on about was live, and badly breathless.

What is THE BLACK SESSIONS, then?

I think I heard 'The Magic Of A Kind Word' yesterday. How does it go?

'Black Sessions' is the name given to a series of live sessions broadcast on France Inter, presented by John Peel-like figure Bernard Lenoir (Le rock, le soir… c'est Lenoir!). B&S did one back in 1998.

Oh, those: I have heard those, yesterday. They are not as good as the Bootlegs.

Being for the benefit of Mrs Archel and other Brighton Bellenders, not to mention Leo Sayer fans:

(from B&S website)

Stuart DJ'ing in Brighton Thu 19th Aug - 2004

Stuart Murdoch will be the special guest DJ this Saturday night - August 21st - at Holdup at the Arc Club in Brighton, on the seafront. He'll play a two-hour set filled with indie classics and 80's pop hits. Doors are at 10pm and it's £5 in on the door, curfew at 3am. Go along and shake your thing!

Go along! Report Back!