SF0224 30 Years Ago: Belle and Sebastian Begin

“Blessed with vocals straight out of Donovan’s ’60s, and a musical echo of vintage Boomtown Rats, topped off by a west coast vibe, tinged with unbridled Scots romanticism.” (Dave Thompson, Alternative Rock)

“A mix of Beat Happening and Tindersticks.” (Spin)

“An unarranged meeting of disparate outlaws—the lineal descendants of Bowie’s pretty things, the Modern Lovers’ disaffected suburban bohemians, and Paul Westerberg’s invisible strivers.” (Pitchfork)

“Subtly poetic, wickedly funny, gorgeously melodic, steeped in ramshackle C86 jangle and the pop classicism of Bob Dylan and the Velvet Underground” (Malcolm Jack, The Guardian)

“The whimsical, chamber-folk and indie-pop sensibilities draw frequent sonic comparisons to Badly Drawn Boy. Band members have likened the rapid, back-to-back creation of early Belle and Sebastian records to the pivotal mid-60s run of Rubber Soul and Revolver.” (AI Overview)

“Like a livelier Nick Drake.”

“Up there with Big Star, Replacements, R.E.M.”

“A stew that tastes of the Smiths and Simon & Garfunkel.” (Reddit contributors)

So those are the reference points for the early output of Belle and Sebastian. I can just about understand all of them with the exception of The Boomtown Rats, which remains a complete mystery, as the scientist says in the last line of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. In fact I remember Bob Geldof once being incredibly rude about Belle and Sebastian, which put me off him permanently.

As the Blair government swept into power and Noel Gallagher had tea at 10 Downing Street, the cracks in Britpop were already starting to widen. The movement had had its moments, but was mostly appealed to Look Back Bores. When ‘If You’re Feeling Sinister’ arrived at the end of 1996, it felt like a gift from another planet. Or at least, Glasgow.

Small volumes and documentaries (especially the Pitchfork one, which I strongly recommend) have accrued around the album, its predecessor ‘Tigermilk’ and the 1997 EPs, now collected in the compilation ‘Push Barman to Open Old Wounds’. And quite right too. Stuart Murdoch had been lying in bed for many years, a victim of CFS, but in his head he was writing songs that would change the world. Or the world of sensitive souls, anyway.

The songs are timeless, not infected by contemporary recording techniques, passing tropes or juvenilia. No-one can quite agree on the best or the worst songs, perhaps with the exception of ‘Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying’, feted with universal acclaim. Yet when I saw the band recently in Melbourne, Stuart seemed reluctant to play it as he felt it “stood out like a sore thumb. But I suppose we should play the songs in order.” Another confounding thing about the track is that for an acoustic strum, it’s the song that gets everyone on their feet and, if not exactly dancing, certainly swaying enthusiastically.

I’ve played many B&S tracks before, so classics like ‘Fox in the Snow’ and ‘A Century of Fakers’ I’ve left off this episode. The easiest thing to do if you’re new to the group, which few people reading this will be, is to start with ‘Sinister’, then ‘Tigermilk’ and ‘Barman’ and from there proceed with caution. It honestly gets patchier as you go along.

But nothing can subtract from the sublime perfection of 1996 and 1997.