I Could Be Dreaming: the Belle and Sebastian song-by-song, album-by-album thread

interesting quarantine project

every band/artist had a shot at this some way, I find this one was very well put together and the people who contributed must have been very moved

4/5


but now surfing the third wave is not so much heroic and estoic anymore, good old days of april 2020

 

I haven't been to this thread for a week or so, so I'll check if there was mention that the Japanese Bagnold soundtrack has a reprise of This Letter as a bonustrack. I haven't heard it, can't find it online.

 

There isn't...I also haven't heard it. Feel free to rate and talk about it, anybody who has heard it!

 

Our votes for "Protecting the Hive"

1-0
2-0
3-1
4-2
5-1
Average: 4.5

 

So, having done the EPs yesterday, today I move on to Tigermilk - three favourite tracks.

Now, this is really hard, as the album is so good; but having listened to it last night my current favourites are:

The State I Am In
Expectations
I Could Be Dreaming

Least successful? I guess most people would say Electronic Renaissance, but I like that one, so I'm going to say You're Just A Baby

 

I would reluctantly have to agree with you (reluctant because there aren’t any weak songs really).

 

Collated Ratings for How to Solve Our Human Problems Pts. 1-3

1. Sweet Dew Lee 3.3125
2. We Were Beautiful 4.03
3. Fickle Season 2.38
4. The Girl Doesn't Get It 2.56
5. Everything Is Now [Instrumental] 2.7
   
   
6. Show Me the Sun 2.8222
7. The Same Star 3.5
8. I'll Be Your Pilot 3.975
9. Cornflakes 2.14
10. A Plague On Other Boys 3.475
    
    
11. Poor Boy 3.27
12. Everything Is Now [Part 2] 3.9538
13. Too Many Tears 3.7
14. This is An Everlasting Song 3.9889
15. Best Friend 3.0975

How to Solve Our Human Problems Pts 1-3 3.1909
Average By Song: 3.2603

• Sometimes 2.575

 

Collated ratings for Days of the Bagnold Summer

1. Sister Buddha [Intro] 2.875
2. I Know Where the Summer Goes [2019] 3.6857
3. Did the Day Go Just Like You Wanted? 3.9125
4. Jill Pole 3.5278
5. I'll Keep It Inside 2.65
6. Safety Valve 3.7278
7. The Colours Gonna Run 2.9
8. Another Day Another Night 2.8125
9. Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying [2019] 4.1071
10. Wait and See What the Day Holds 3.1429
11. Sister Buddha 4.2222
12. This Letter 3.0222
13. We WEre Never Glorious 2.8571

Days of the Bagnold Summer: 2.8429
Average by song: 3.3418

• Protecting the Hive 4.5

What to Do In Summer: 4

 

Thank you so much Lance for your daily work, I am mightily impressed!

 

And here are collated ratings for everything:

Dog ON Wheels

1. Dog On Wheels 4.6875
2. The State I'm In [Beatbox demo] 4.9167
3. String Bean Jean 4.0286
4. Belle and Sebastian 4.2333

Tigermilk

1 The State I'm In 5
2 Expectations 4.25
3 She's Losing it 4.5714
4 You're Just a Baby 4.2957
5 Electronic Renaissance 3.4375
6 I Could Be Dreaming 4.8333
7 We Rule the School 4.6875
8 My Wandering Days Are Over 4.9286
9 I Don't Love Anyone Average: 4.1
10 Mary Jo 4.2143



If You're Feeling Sinister

1. Stars of Track and Field 5
2. Seeing Other People 4.6818
3. Me and the Major 4.8
4. LIke Dylan in the Movies 5
5. Fox In the Snow 4.5545
6. Get Me Away, I'm dying 4.475
7. If You're Feeling Sinister 4.55
8. Mayfly 4.25
9. Boy Done Wrong Again 3.6909
10. Judy and the Dream of Horses 4.8

If You're Feeling Sinister 4.8571



Lazy Line Painter Jane

1. Lazy Line Painter Jane 4.6667
2. You Made Me Forget My Dreams 3.8
3. Photo Jenny 4.5688
4. A Century of Elvis 2.85

A Century of Fakers

1. A Century of Fakers 3.9
2. La Pastie de la Bourgeoisie 4.75
3. Beautiful 3.9188
4. Put the Book Back on the Shelf/songs for children4.2

• Impossible Things (single) 2.15
• A Spaceboy Dream #3 [Looper version] 2.65

The Boy with the Arab Strap

1. It Could have Been a Brilliant Career 4.1111
2. Sleep the Clock Around 4.509
3. Is It Wicked Not To Care 4.2
4. Ease Your Feet Off In The Sea 4.125
5. A Summer Wasting 4.3909
6. Seymour Stein 4.0182
7. Spaceboy Dream 2.65
8. Dirty Dream Number Two 4.8182
9. The Boy with the Arab Strap 4.575
10. Chickfactor 2.9444
11. Simple Things 4.1111
12. The Rollercoaster Ride 3.625

The Boy with the Arab Strap 4.4786



This Is Just a Modern Rock Song EP

1. This is just a modern rock song 4.26
2.I know where the summer goes 3.8167
3. The Gate 3.11
4. Slow Graffiti 4.61

This Is Just a Modern Rock Song: as a whole 4.06

• Poupee De Cire Poupee De Son 3.2571
• Tigermilk 1.9

Up a Tree

1. The Treehouse 3.3667
2. Impossible Things #2 3.9833
3. Burning Flies 3.3333
4. Festival '95 2.65
5. Ballad of Ray Suzuki 3.4167
6. Dave the Moon Man 2.975
7. Quiet and Small 2.35
8. Colombo's Car 2.5
9. Up a Tree Again 3.8
10. Back to the Treehouse 2.765

The Green Fields of Foreverland

1. Hangman in the Shadow 3.975
2. Evensong 3.9875
3. Renew and Restore 3.3
4. Emmanuelle, Skating on Thin Ice 3.1833
5. Rose I Love You 3.15
6. Enchanted Place 3.8667
7. Tree Lullaby 3.333
8. Dirty Snow for the Broken Ground 3.8
9. WEathershow 4.25
10. A Chapter in the Life of Matthiew 3.7333
11. To Salt a Scar 3.55

The Green Fields of Foreverland 3.3667

• Who's Afraid of Y2K 3.5

Fold Your Hands Child, YOu Walk Like a Peasant

1. I Fought in a War 4.5222
2. The Model 4.8667
3. Beyond the Sunrise 1.5909
4. Waiting for the Moon to Rise 3.2
5. Don't Leave the Light On 4.4091
6. The Wrong Girl 3.6333
7. The Chalet Lines 3.2857
8. Nice Day For a Sulk 2.9545
9. Women's Realm 4.6
10. Family Tree 4
11. There's Too Much Love 4.6556

Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk LIke a Peasant: 3.5

• Legal Man 4.2222
• Judy Is a Dick Slap 3.2225
• Winter Wooskie 3.708
• O Come, O Come Emmanuel 3.3667
• Good Time 2.8714

Swansong for You

1 Let the Good Times Begin 3.5
2 Partner in Crime 2.125
3 Falling From Grace 4.04
4 Loretta Young 3
5 Sisterwoman 3.275
6 Solace For Pain 3.075
7 Flood 3.45
8 Pretty Things 2.95
9 There Is No Greater Gold 2.8
10 There Was Magic Then 4.2

Swansong for You: 2.8

• Going Home 2.8
• October's Sky 2
• HOld Back a Thousand Hours 2.8
• Stoop Sale 2.2

"Belle and Sebastian 2001

1 Jonathan David 3.7545
2 Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It 3.4
3 The Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner 4.1111
4 I'm Waking Up to Us 4.5
5 I Love My Car 4.2888
6 Marx and Engels 4.37
7 Shoot the Sexual Athlete 2.1667
8 The Magic of a Kind Word 3.2222
9 Nothing IN the Silence 2.6857
10 (My Girl's Got) MIraculous Technique 3.5357
11. Here Comes the Sun 3.25
12. Waiting for the Man 2.4375
13. The Boys Are Back in Town 3.1667


Live at the BBC disc 1 4.1667

Live in Belfast 2001 2.9

Collated ratings for Storytelling

1 Fiction 2.9333
2 Freak 1.925
3 F0ck This Sh1t 3.3455
4 Night Walk 2.44
5 Black and White Unite 3.309
6 Consuelo 2.4125
7 Storytelling 4.5555
8 I Don't Want to Play Football 2.48
9 Consuelo Leaving 2.375
10 Wandering Alone 2.9111
11 Scooby Driver 4.1429
12 Fiction (Reprise) 1.9
13 Big John Shaft 4.2555

Storytelling: 2.6889


Dear Catastrophe Waitress

1 Step Into My Office, Baby 4.44
2 Dear Catastrophe Waitress 3.86
3 If She Wants me 4.4167
4 Piazza New York Catcher 4.2
5 Asleep On a Sunbeam 3.9278
6 I'm a Cuckoo 4.846
7 You Don't Send Me 3.1231
8 Wrapped Up in Books 4.4167
9 Lord Anthony 4.15
10 If You Find Yourself Caught in Love 4.3833
11 Roy Walker 3.5182
12 Stay Loose 4.1917

Dear Catastrophe Waitress 4.4091

◦ Love on the March 2.5167

◦ Desperation Made a Fool of Me 3.6292

◦ Stop Look and Listen 2.6818

◦ Passion Fruit 2.4375

◦ I'm a Cuckoo [The Avalanches Remix] 1.8222

◦ (I Believe in) Travellin' Light 3.7444

◦ Final Day 2.52

◦ Your Cover's Blown 4.5222

◦ Cover (Version) 3.025

◦ Your Secrets 3.7333

Susie the Muppet 3.7

Hand of God 2.7


If You're Feeling Sinister Live at the Barbican 5


The Life Pursuit

1. Act of the Apostle 4.6364
2. Another Sunny Day 4.7222
3. White Collar Boy 4.25
4. The Blues Are Still Blue 3.7
5. Dress Up In You 4.55
6. Sukie In the Graveyard 3.3333
7. We Are the Sleepyheads 3.3154
8. Song For Sunshine 3.3227
9. Funny Little Frog 4.5
10. To Be Myself Competely 4.0777
11. Act of the Apostle 2 3.63
12. For the Price of a Cup of Tea 3.6667
13. Mornington Crescent 3.928

The Life Pursuit: 3.75

*I Took a Long Hard Look 2.825

*Meat and Potatoes 2.8222

The Life Pursuit 3.4444

Mr Richards 2.5727

Whiskey in the Jar 2.44

Long Black Scarf 3.325

Heaven in the Afternoon 3.6444

Baby Jane 3.5

Casaco Marrom 3.3125

The MOnkeys are Breaking Out the Zoo 2.9333

The Eighth Station of the Cross Kebab House 2.2778

"Write About Love"

1 I Didn't See It Coming 4.4444
2 Come On Sister 4.2444
3 Calculating Bimbo 3.9444
4 I Want the World to Stop 4.7125
5 Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John 3.0555
6 Write About Love 4.4857
7 I'm Not Living in the Real World 2.45
8 The Ghost of Rock School 4.5
9 Read the Blessed Pages 4
10 I Can See Your Future 4.1111
11 Sunday's Pretty Icons 3.9125

Write About Love 4.1

◦ Blue Eyes of a Millionaire 4.1429
◦ Last Trip 2.18
◦ Suicide Girl 3.9625
◦ Crash 2.387


God Help the Girl (first verison, a bit belated.)


1 Act of the Apostle 3.9375
2 Pretty Eve in the Tub 3.3571
3 A Unified Theory 2.1333
4 Hiding 'neath My Umbrella 3.2134
5 Funny Little Frog 3.52
6 If You Could Speak 3.6222
7 Musician Please Take Head 4.7857
8 Perfection As a Hipster 3.8857
9 Come MOnday Night 4.5188
10 Music Room Window 1.875
11 I Just Want Your Jeans 3.1857
12 I'll Have to Dance with Cassie 3.7142
13 A Down and Dusky Blonde 4.2375

God Help the Girl {2009} 4.02
◦ Howard Jones Is My Mozart 2
◦ Mary's Market 3.1833
◦ I'm In Love with the City 3.5917
◦ He's a Loving Kind of Boy 3.05
◦ Stills 3.7143
◦ Baby's Just Waiting 3.133
◦ The Psychiatrist is In 3.7167

Stills EP: 3.675
◦ Baby Your Blind 4
◦ A Down and Dusky Blonde [Second version] 3.925

Girls In Peacetime Want to Dance
1 Nobody's Empire 4.4444
2 Allie 4.1429
3 The Party Line 3.4222
4 The Power of Three 3.6889
5 Cat with the Cream 3.8889
6 Enter Sylvia Plath 3.5
7 The Everlasting Muse 3.65
8 Perfect Couples 3.52
9 Ever Had a Little Faith 3.73
10 Play For Today 4
11 The Book of You 3.375
12 Today (This Army's For Peace 3.9375

Girls In Peacetime Want to Dance 3.65
◦ Born To Act 3.49
◦ Two Birds 2.5
◦ Piggy in the Middle 2.9778
◦ A Politician's Silence 3.8333
◦ 2013: 2.2
◦ Rock Your Baby 4
◦ Olympic Village 6AM 3.375


How to Solve Our Human Problems

1 Sweet Dew Lee 3.3125
2 We Were Beautiful 4.03
3 Fickle Season 2.38
4 The Girl Doesn't Get It 2.56
5 Everything Is Now [Instrumental] 2.7
6 Show Me the Sun 2.8222
7 The Same Star 3.5
8 I'll Be Your Pilot 3.975
9 Cornflakes 2.14
10 A Plague On Other Boys 3.475
11 Poor Boy 3.27
12 Everything Is Now [Part 2] 3.9538
13 Too Many Tears 3.7
14 This is An Everlasting Song 3.9889
15 Best Friend 3.0975

How to Solve Our Human Problems Pts 1-3 3.1909
◦ Sometimes 2.575

Days of the Bagnold Summer
1 Sister Buddha [Intro] 2.875
2 I Know Where the Summer Goes [2019] 3.6857
3 Did the Day Go Just Like You Wanted? 3.9125
4 Jill Pole 3.5278
5 I'll Keep It Inside 2.65
6 Safety Valve 3.7278
7 The Colours Gonna Run 2.9
8 Another Day Another Night 2.8125
9 Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying [2019] 4.1071
10 Wait and See What the Day Holds 3.1429
11 Sister Buddha 4.2222
12 This Letter 3.0222
13 We WEre Never Glorious 2.8571

Days of the Bagnold Summer: 2.8429

Average by song: 3.3418
◦ Protecting the Hive 4.5

What to Do In Summer: 4

 

Tomorrow, I'll post the Spotify playlists with additions: some songs from the last two albums, plus some additions from the first two albums that were left off for no good reason.

 

Thank you for this labour of (mostly) love. Appreciated!

 

The State I Am In
I Could Be Dreaming
My Wandering Days Are Over (She's Losing It would definitely have been in my top 3 back in the day, but MWDAO has just proved to have just that bit more durability over the years. I can listen to it endlessly)

Least good: agreed on You're Just A Baby

I would like to join in on thanking and congratulating Lance for seeing this thread through.

 

Fantastic work, Lance.

Any new band to cover on the horizon? I'd like to join from the beginning.

 

Well i started an Aimee Mann thread today. Im doing three other threads besides that and that is my limit. Im planning to do XTC when my Finn Brothers thread ends in the summer and Ive got a number of ideas for when my Robyn Hitchcock thread ends in the summer.
The Prince thread will be going for a long while, probably about two or three more years.

 

Not massively keen on any of those, although I do have a copy of Mr. Partridge "Takeaway/The Lure of Salvage"

 

Welp.

 

Listened to Tigermilk today. In the end my personal favorite. There is just something so perfect about the sound.

 

I put off listening to Tigermilk for ages, because it was a college project recorded in a very short time, so I thought it would probably be disappointing. How wrong I was! I wish they would do more albums where the principle writer tells the others what they'll be playing, they rehearse it until they've got it right, then record and mix quickly.

 

It turns out that I also have a copy of the 12" Go+ that I'd forgotten about. So I will happily join in the XTC thread when these items are being discussed

 

The State I Am In
I Could Be Dreaming
We Rule The School

I missed yesterday so for completeness, from the EPs

Dog On Wheels
Lazy Line Painter Jane
A Century Of Fakers
Slow Graffiti
Legal Man
The Loneliness Of The Middle Distance Runner
I'm Waking Up To Us

(I was so tempted to put Marx And Engels just to wind up @Dave in Preston)

 

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, as long as they agree that mine is the correct one.

 

The issue I have with "Marx & Engels" is this. Stuart sets up a situation about people cooking and watching TV and, maybe, being happier than him. Then he suddenly changes course and starts a new line about a girl with a strong accent that he can't understand, who just wants to do her laundry, read her politics books, and not get hit on by men.

Then he simply repeats the whole thing, with only minor variations.

This is lazy writing. I either want to know why the people cooking meals on Saturday are happier than Stuart, or more about the girl from Wallasey: how come she's in the launderette, why is left wing politics more important to her than human interaction, why can't Stuart understand her. There are the germs of two potential songs in there, and he doesn't explore either of them properly.

And the music is average, too.

 

But apart from that you love it, right ?

 

I find I quite amusing this song rubs you up the wrong way! To me it’s a perfectly serviceable B-side which has some nice moments. It’s no (non-live) Beyond The Sunrise.