Just as the fictional Sebastian wrote all his best songs in 1995, Belle and Sebastian released all their best records in 1996 and 1997. The two LPs and three EPs they released during these years provide a definitive record of this bands best years. That’s not to say that 1998’s The Boy with the Arab Strap isn’t a great album. It is, but unlike Belle and Sebastian’s previous efforts, it doesn’t really hold together as a unified work. The Boy with the Arab Strap is the first Belle and Sebastian album that really incorporates members of the band besides Stuart Murdoch in an essential way. Songs written and performed by other members of the band, even if they’re good songs, don’t necessarily fit into the already well established Belle and Sebastian aesthetic. This aesthetic, as I’ve already noted, includes not just the songs but also the album covers and liner notes.
“It Could Have Been a Brilliant Career” is a classic Stuart Murdoch-penned Belle and Sebastian song about two young artists who suffer apparently well deserved strokes:
He had a stroke at the age of 24
It could have been a brilliant career
Painting lines in a school that was too well known
Painting lines with a friend that had gone before
She challenged everyone to a fight
But the prefects all backed down
And they ran her out of town
Cause she drank and swore and spoke
Out of turn, she was the village joke
It seems to me like a reflection on the perils of ambition. The song could be taken as mean-spirited, but I think it’s meant to be self-directed.
Stevie Jackson’s contributions to the album are a little uneven. “Semour Stein” is about a meeting with legendary rock’n'roll record executive Seymour Stein. I like the song, but I’m not so sure it belongs on the album. I’ve never been able to get into Stevie Jackson’s other song on the album. “Chickfactor” is about visiting New York City and being interviewed by the ‘zine Chickfactor. Stevie Jackson is clearly into all the trappings of being in a rock band.
I like Isobel Campbell’s “Is It Wicked Not to Care?.” It’s definitely the kind of song that critics of Belle and Sebastian cite when they think of this band as “too twee.” I don’t see anything wrong with being twee.
“A Space Boy Dream” consists of spoken vocals over music. It’s more successful than “A Century of Elvis.” It is an example of the sound that Stuart David would go on to develop with Looper.
The title track is one of Belle and Sebastian’s most memorable:
Hovering silence from you is a giveaway
Squalor and smoke’s not your style
“I don’t like this place”
We better go
Then I compare notes with your older sister
I am a lazy gett, she is as pure as the cold driven snow
She accepts my confession
The song ends with the music fading out as the last lines are sung:
Strapped to the table with suits from the shelter shop
Comic celebrity takes a back seat as the cigarette catches
And sets off the smoke alarm
What do you make of the cool set in London?
You’re constantly updating your hit parade of your ten biggest wanks
She’s a waitress and she’s got style
Sunday bathtime could take a while
The last line of the song is almost inaudible. I wasn’t able to hear it until I turned up the volume all the way on a good pair of headphones.
No Comments Yet