Search And Destroy: Belle And Sebastian

I don't mind the lyrics but I've found their records really ugly-sounding since "Life Pursuit" even when the songs have been alright. It's a shame they never reconnected with Trevon Horn. But I find their late period wall-of-sound approach over-fussy and the musicianship has lost a certain swing to carry it off. A bit pub rock, maybe.

Still some great tunes here and there (I Want The World to Stop, I Didn't See It Coming) and some enjoyable fluff (Party Line) and I really need to check out Peacetime again. Last time I saw live (2010ish) they were still a surprisingly fantastic live band.

Relevant new tweet from Stuart:

In January 1996, just as the band was forming, the first lp could have been so different. A double lp.. featuring such forgotten tracks as

When The Cynics Stare Back From The Wall
Girls In Peace Time Want To Dance
and, The Disenchanted Pony 😄 pic.twitter.com/Lab9YlgZEZ

— stuart murdoch (@nee_massey) November 4, 2022

Didn’t realize “Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance” as a title had been bouncing around for so long. Also sign me up for the “‘Play For Today’ is a masterpiece” club—their best song since Life Pursuit era for me, tho “I Want the World To Stop” comes close

Amazing to see multiple posters call the song 'play for today' a masterpiece when I think most B&S fans or former fans I know (a lot) couldn't even identify it.

I do know it, having made myself listen to that LP repeatedly, but don't think I could name a good thing about the track.

I do not think that Murdoch has written many songs about his children. Only one, 'I'll be your pilot', strongly comes to mind.

So I think that is a bit of a red herring re: any downturn in the content of his songs.

I don't really think he writes much about marital contentment either - maybe as much about marital struggle or doubt. The song 'calculating bimbo', which I quite like, comes to mind as possibly relevant.

I still listen to the last LP every day, and I am convinced of poster Gimbel's view that 'working boy in NYC' is the high point. It has a kind of authority that could put it on DCW.

I don't like Sarah Martin's voice but was thinking that nevertheless one could make a good enough ep from a few of her songs:

I didn't see it coming
waiting for the moon to rise
the power of three
storytelling

Fickle Season is the only B&S song that sticks in my mind from recent years and that’s a Sarah Martin song

I've never heard of it!

"I'll Be Your Pilot" isn't the only song where Stuart Murdoch mentions his kids; there is also "Nobody's Empire", and the latter song definitely gives an impression of being all settled down in life now. C'est le train du monde and I don't want to knock it too much, but such focus on family and domestic stability just feels like a sort of antithesis of early B&S.

I didn't want to give the impression that I think the band was finished after the turning point – at least not until A Bit of Previous where I decided to give up, at least for now. I always skip over "I'll Be Your Pilot", it's so cringe, but e.g. "Sunday's Pretty Icons" and (yes) "Play for Today" figure among my own B&S favourites.

Amazing to see multiple posters call the song 'play for today' a masterpiece when I think most B&S fans or former fans I know (a lot) couldn't even identify it.

lol I'm OG enough that my copy of Tigermilk literally was a cassette taped from the vinyl by Pam at Chickfactor (#losingmyedge) and I had no idea what this song was. So I googled it and ... still didn't remember it. But I did see that it's on "Girls in Peacetime...", and even though I don't remember a single thing about that album I do remember finally giving it several listens maybe just last year, possibly for the first time, and thinking, man, I can't believe I slept on this album, it's pretty good! But then I haven't listened to it since and have apparently forgotten everything about it except, ironically, that I was surprised how good it was.

everyone has their jumping off point it seems though no one seems to utterly hate that B&S still exist and put out increasingly dull LPs; they are dull, but not offensively bad. I hated the Life Pursuit myself, wasn't a big fan of Fold Your Hands either, and I really assumed I was totally done with them and then they did Dear Catastrophe Waitress which I think is their second best album.

oh wait, pursuit came after waitress, no wonder. I guess I was done with them at that point. I still go see them live when they come around though.

Ftr, I jumped off after The Life Pursuit. I came upon 'Play for Today' during the poll and it rapidly became one of my favourite B&S tracks.

my copy of Tigermilk literally was a cassette taped from the vinyl by Pam at Chickfactor

It may have been!

""I'll Be Your Pilot" isn't the only song where Stuart Murdoch mentions his kids; there is also "Nobody's Empire""

Where does that song mention his children?

girls in peacetime is my favorite post-sinister lp. the songs are just so good

"Nobody's Empire" has the line "Now I look at you, you’re a mother of two / You’re a quiet revolution". I had assumed this was a reference to Murdoch's own wife and kids, but Genius says it concerns an acquaintance. Same difference, though.

Once you’ve seen one kid you’ve seen ‘em all.

OTM

Now we're old with creaking bones
Some with partners, some alone
Some with kids and some with dogs
Getting through the nightly slog

We've come a long way from making life-size models of the Velvet Underground in clay

I don’t know that song, but those lines are pretty good, IMO

(if he can no longer credibly write about young people, this seems like what he should be writing about?)

It’s time for songs from the point of view of Doris, the supervisor

_Now we're old with creaking bones
Some with partners, some alone
Some with kids and some with dogs
Getting through the nightly slog
_


We've come a long way from making life-size models of the Velvet Underground in clay

And still nobody has explained to me how Lazy Line Painter Jane got her name.

She had a lazy eye but they didn’t let her go blind like Lisa?

"Nobody's Empire" has the line "Now I look at you, you’re a mother of two / You’re a quiet revolution". I had assumed this was a reference to Murdoch's own wife and kids, but Genius says it concerns an acquaintance. Same difference, though.

This post seems to say: not only should people not write about their children, also no-one should write a song about someone else who has had children.

I don't think that's reasonable.

I agree with poster morrisp: the lines from 'young and stupid' are OK. They refer to reality and they say something quite comprehensible. They're somewhat better, I think, than the more vapid and elusive generalities I was referring to way above with the thread revive.

'Dogs' takes us back somewhat to 'I love my car' and the dogs on the cover of that ep.

BTW my first copy of TIGERMILK was the same sort of tape of a tape, from vinyl I believe - I suspect that the same record was at the root of all these recordings - in I think 1997. I played it a lot but it made too little impression till one day on a bus I played it again and finally it sounded important and exciting. As it happened that was just when TIGERMILK was also released on CD (July 1999).

DESTROY: The ones about how independent and cool it is to be B & S or a member thereof. "Seymour Stein", "Chickfactor", "Family Tree" etc. etc. "Beyond The Sunrise" is a natural D-Side but as Hazlewood knockoffs go it's not an awful one.

― Tom, Monday, February 5, 2001

Possibly underrated post.

"This post seems to say: not only should people not write about their children, also no-one should write a song about someone else who has had children."

"Nobody’s Empire" exists in a context: it’s a looking-back-decades song about an acquaintance settled down with children, when the songwriter himself is also long since settled down. It just underscores how this band is now far removed from the scene and concerns that got them their fan base and recognition, because you can't imagine any of the bohemian or angsty protagonists of the early records' songs expressing domestic contentedness.

B&S have maintained the same band name, still play those classic songs, and have new songs and album photography that still center young people, but they are clearly old people now. I just suggested this is one reason why people might feel the records after year X are less magical or convincing than the early ones.

They're not old people - they're middle-aged.

You don't get a state pension here till about 67!

I mostly agree with that description of that song, though it's notable that the song is in fact, as far as I recall, very 'angsty' indeed - talking about doubt, despair, whatever, which the singer has, perhaps, come through. I don't think it's a serene and smug song.

I agree that 'marital contentment' etc is potentially less interesting than other topics or moods, but this is still, surely, only a minority of late B&S songs. Most of them are about something else?

Just tried to listen to the latest one and I gotta say I can barely even stand Stuart’s voice. It’s like his early voice stood still and backslid a bit while it lost the supportive context that made it work. It’s as if Elvis sang “Suspicious Minds” (or “Clambake” even tbh) in his “Baby, Let’s Play House” voice except, well…

the world needs a good "40 years of brutal, diminishing, codependence, ending with horrible illness and loss" songwriter. but also sometimes twee. i think he'll get there.

And still nobody has explained to me how Lazy Line Painter Jane got her name.

She painted the yellow lines that followed the roads she had traveled on a canvas? If she was lazy about painting or traveling (or attributed to laziness something else) maybe the canvas would not have to be so large.

https://www.heartachewithhardwork.com/2009/08/please-stop-me-there-im-even-boring-myself.html

^Title is a lie though

> I’m gonna say that was a tape of a tape...

vinyl -> minidisk (with added session tracks, demos) -> tape -> pam, i think, depending on when it was done

a different lifetime

(one without mp3s)

I think that's what I had, Koogs: the extra tracks included 'London has let me down again', 'Hurley's having dreams', 'Pocketbook Angel' ?

Is there a way to hear those now? Surprised they’ve never done an expanded reissue…

I had the same tape, from someone on s******r, long forgotten who it was.
tigermilk + demos + bbc radio scotland interview where they chose these songs:

Tom Waits - The Earth Dies Screaming
Glen Campbell & Bobby Gentry - Little Green Apples
Queen - Don't Stop Me Now

Never heard the interview, wasn't part of the package for me.

It's odd that those earliest songs have never been formally released. Some of them were at least as good as most of B&S's later work.

I’m gonna say that was a tape of a tape

I think Pocketbook Angel etc were pretty much Stuart Murdoch solo demos, pre-band, so maybe that explains why they’ve never been released, at least under the B&S name.

well there was Rhode Island before there was B&S. played before the pastels at a neil street rough trade shop in-store the once.

Re: the name "Lazy Line Painter Jane," the best explanation I read was this: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858525114/?&specific_com=73015023512#comments
As for the whole song, this explains a lot: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858525114/?&specific_com=73015735651#comments

For those who got off the B&S bus after, say, DCW or TLP, I would suggest trying the first five songs of "Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance"; the whole album is solid (definitely my favorite since TLP), but I put those five songs on repeat regularly.
I also really loved "God Help the Girl" and Catherine Ireton's singing especially - "Come Monday Night" is absolutely perfect, and "A Down and Dusky Blonde" goes through my head all the time (I love those biting lyrical tidbits..."forgive yourself and eat," "trick photography on speed," "the truth is crushing like a heel" etc.) Don't bother with the soundtrack album, though.