Search And Destroy: Belle And Sebastian

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.

That’s a good reading of the song, but I think think "And you hope that she/they will see" refers to the girl/boy that she will have tonight.

(I’m also not sure about the “kit for games” verse, but it’s pretty opaque)

tbh, most of that explanation doesn't ring accurate to me.

The 'kit for games' verse, she's forgotten her proper kit but games is compulsory. So, she borrows a boys jumper (doubtless he's got his own proper kit) and still is a better runner than the rest of 'em.

Licking railings, I don't know so I can't say it's wrong as such. Anyone else heard similar?

I also thought “licking railings” was literal (like the jumper); that write-up makes a good case that’s it not… but is that, like, a known euphemism(?)

I thought she was so weird/unstable that she literally went around licking railings.

Rhode Island must have played ... 'Rhoda'?

I shouldn't have clicked on the LLPJ analysis page. Unpleasant.

I do think that many of the songs on GOD HELP THE GIRL are surprisingly excellent. I don't know who the singers are, and always had trouble with them. I haven't heard the other LP of it and don't know why there are two LPs.

Rishi Sunak will make a speech to Cop making the cause for ‘clean growth’. Wealth creation without wrecking the planet. I don’t care which party he speaks for, I support this statement and believe it is possible, and a way to sell planet saving to the rest of the world.

— stuart murdoch (@nee_massey) November 7, 2022

he is a bit of a melt, though he also lays into the tories sometimes in a way melts rarely do, on balance would say he's come out of the social media era better than most of his generation

There are quite strong arguments that all growth is bad and we need degrowth.

Though there are also quite strong arguments that green growth is possible and necessary.

I don't feel sure that Murdoch has really looked into the nuances of these detailed positions.

I think in his tweet what is more notable is the banality - as if no-one has ever talked about clean growth or green growth as a rhetorical approach before. I am quite an ignorant person, but even to me Murdoch can seem naive.

yeah his political philosophy is basically "well-meaning but ill-informed and lacking in insight" and I wish he would either learn about these things or shut up about them.

He was on QT recently and by all accounts didn't really say anything. odd he went on. also odd (imo) are people on twitter who follow 0 other people.

I agree with both those points. It is odd that he follows no-one.

He said very little on QT, made very little of the opportunity to talk in public - so why put himself through it? Was really hard to understand.

I won’t pretend I can unravel the entire lyrics to lazy line painter jane but I’m 100% sure that “running miles in some boys jumper” does not refer to having standing-up sex in the middle of the street while wearing the same shirt, that’s an extremely bizarre reading.

Yes, that would be wrong. I'm glad I didn't read that far.

"Don't bother with the soundtrack album, though."

Or the film itself. After reviews that were either merely polite or scathing (and the social-media critique of Murdoch for not including non-white characters), God Helps the Girl seems to have been rather forgotten even among B&S fans.

I like some aspects of the film, just can't stand the lead male actor.

HI DERE!

She runs alot in the short story in the liner notes to the single:

https://i.discogs.com/_xfZOalsljXGpxrmJ1X9on6etnGgK5d98SAGx09jypo/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTM2ODk2/NS0xMjg4Njk4MTk1/LmpwZWc.jpeg

Forgot to note that I saw a Belle and Sebastian Illustrated Lyrics book on a table at the front of The Strand yesterday.

Alice and I watched "God help the girl", and liked it a lot

It helped that Alice was basically on the way to 'modern music uni' at the time, so it was pretty much what she was doing right then!

The wife and I both enjoyed the movie and the albums. After that is when I stopped paying them much attention.

How many B&S songs mention Lisa, I wonder.

Y'all made my curious about QT, which I'd not seen before. That episode is on Youtube. A more generous assessment might be that the moderator didn't give Murdoch all that many opportunities?

ok, i literally could not understand the first questioner's question. at second listen i caught "liz truss," "common market," and "too far." skeered, yup, but i'll try.

Come off better than most of his generation on social media? Perhaps - to his credit, he hasn't gone down the TERF route like certain Glasgow indie popsters - but his meltdown over the P4K article about systemic racism in indie was a pure riddy. In fairness, I think there's been some reflection on this. I think naivety is the word.

https://athousandflowers.net/2015/03/30/weekly-wanker-049-stuart-murdoch/

I’m sorry to have my attention drawn to Murdoch’s Twitter feed. It’s put me off him a bit, honestly. This thread is Adrian Chiles-level discourse.

It makes me think that fundamentally the banks aren’t so bad after all. They keep our money for us, but they look upon it like a loan, and they pay us interest. Just like when they lend us money to buy a house, but they charge us interest. It’s the same rules.😎

— stuart murdoch (@nee_massey) November 5, 2022

She runs a lot in the short story in the liner notes to the single

The liner notes on Belle and Sebastian releases put me off listening to them for ages. This reminds me why.

I met someone who was working for the band on their cruise who referred to the film as 'God Help Us All'

Haha, I had to give up on the film. Just so badly conceived and executed, and its twee bohemian fantasy Glasgow with no working class or POC in it (apart from the brief appearance of some drug dealing "hooligans") is ghastly. A pal who went to a screening of a rough cut said there was a scene where the lead makes a comment about neds and cockroaches being the only things to survive the apocalypse. Thankfully somebody had a word and it was cut...

yeah the reaction to the pitchfork article was bad, though to be fair he did reflect on it a bit at least and did seem to learn something. his melty "let's be reasonable" stuff has me rolling my eyes, and is why I muted him a while back.

I would put musicians on social media into four camps:

* Never post or only post about new releases, etc. (this is 50%+ and is probably the best option)
* Post reasonable moderate centrist both-sides stuff which is frustratingly nieve, ill-informed and completely maladaptive to an environment like Twitter (Stew and quite a lot of others fit in here, maybe 20%)
* Understand the discourse, are politically sound and know that Twitter is for shitposting and dunking (You can count these people on your fingers, they are so few)
* Have disappeared down a rabbit hole of TERFism, antivaxxers, covidiots, MAGAs, freeze peach, etc. most likely sparked by someone daring to disagree with them once (this is unfortunately something like 20% too)

So all I would say is, better in group 2 than group 4.

Perhaps - to his credit, he hasn't gone down the TERF route like certain Glasgow indie popsters

Naming names is a must here.