Search And Destroy: Belle And Sebastian

Chinaski:

I'm certainly not an expert on the latter stuff, but I'm still struggling to parse the argument that B&S, the band who wrote Lazy Line Painter Jane and Stars of Track and Field and Dirty Dream No.2, and latterly wrote Nobody's Empire and Play for Today, moved from obvious realism to abstraction. Hasn't Murdoch always played with place and character, dream and fantasy?

I'm afraid I can't follow your logic here. The first 2-3 songs you mention seem to be very clear, specific, concrete, whereas the last 2 seem to be obscure and more abstract. And as I say, even if they weren't, lots of other later songs do seem to be. So from my POV you rather confirm my original thought.

At the risk of being challopsy, those earlier tunes were kind of a refreshing update of 50s/60s Angry Young Man/Kitchen Sink drama filtered through The Smiths and applied to 90s Glasgow in a way that felt both familiar and new whereas the later songs, well I can’t comment on those particular ones since I never heard them but the ones I did hear didn’t sound like anything much at all.

The decline came later than people thought at the time. “Fold Your Hands Child” includes some of their best songs.

Genuinely think FYHCYWLAP might be their worst LP, it has 2-3 genuinely great songs, but also some of their worst (know we had this discussion before in the poll of course) - their last 3 LPs are a mixture of a few great songs ("I Didn't See It Coming" / "Play for Today") and the rest is pretty mediocre, which I can live with a bit more.

Dear Catastrophe Waitress / The Life Pursuit still stand up though imo

LP1 of The Life Pursuit is so fucking ace. Those glam stompers! “Another Sunny Day” murdered me every time.

You're probably right, pinefox, though I do think the point is overstated. Early Murdoch songs use local detail to make universal points; the latter songs have just removed the scaffolding a bit. I suspect it's because he exhausted his subject matter and outgrew his surroundings with success.

Taking 'Play for Today' as an example of the latter Murdoch, this could be from any album, no?

I read a play written today about a boy
Who hides in attics when the sun is up
Everyone is at work
What will I do? Where will I go?
Show me the way
The truth, the anger, show me rules of thumb
Show the way to grow old

I'm puzzled by the admiration being expressed for 'play for today' - a song that sadly does very little for me.

I think I prefer the much older Cure song of that name.

I think it's a masterpiece, fwiw.

First 4.5 minutes are solid 7/10, last three minutes are absolute masterpiece

B&S started out as music specifically about young-people things: the uncertainty of fitting in, being bohemian and somewhat carefree (except for the pain of social awkwardness), etc. My hipster acquaintances in Glasgow say that Stuart Murdoch managed to be deeply connected to and accepted by young people there into his late thirties, which I think was quite a feat, but it obviously couldn’t last forever.

My personal dividing line is God Help the Girl: suddenly these songs were less poignant observations by a peer, and more a now-old man writing about what he merely thinks young people are like. Subsequent songs about his kids (ugh) and marital contentment only widened the breach.

God forbid someone write about what's meaningful to them.

Melomane 🎯

Don’t think it’s that per se, it’s just- what is it?- a different subject might require a different approach, and vice versa. Some people are good at one thing but not the other.

If I want somebody writing about their kids, my go to one man guy is Loudon Wainwright III, and vice versa.

Is there a thread about how martial bliss / parenthood / sobriety is bad for songwriting, but B&S are far from unique here.

Even though he didn’t actually write the song entitled “Daughter,” but that fact only makes him even more the go-to one man guy.

“There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.” Cyril Connolly, 19fucking55.

Is there a thread about how martial bliss / parenthood / sobriety is bad for songwriting, but B&S are far from unique here.

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.