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

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Lance LaSalle, May 21, 2020.

  1. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    No, but there is no doubt that when I first heard Belle and SEbastian (with this very album) I thought that Isobel's musical presence was extremely powerful on it; she was definitely more than just a pretty face.

    Our votes for "Is It Wicked Not To Care"

    1-0
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    4-4
    5-4
    Average: 4.2
     
  2. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    Today's song is "Ease Your Feet In the Sea", written by Stuart Murdoch and credited to Belle and Sebastian; produced by Tony Doogan.

    Spotify: Ease Your Feet Into The Sea
    LYRIC.

    According to genius.com, the song is written from the perspective of someone whose friend has committed suicide.
     
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  3. TheGoodDoctor

    TheGoodDoctor It used to go something like that

    Location:
    London
    Another excellent track. There’s something mysterious about the lyrics which sits well with the melody.

    jeepster have a typo in their lyrics “ease you’re feet...” which has been repeated all over the internet by lyric sites.
     
  4. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    Beautiful lounge-y track that again conjures up images of sunny days, I can feel the coolness of the sea breeze

    Murdoch was really branching out lyrically on this album; there's no judgment of the "boy" whose chosen to leave the world and go "dangling, hovering"; and there's no hint of the religious-and-sex tones of If You're Feeling Sinister here, either. There's just a cleanness to it all, a sense that the narrator is letting go of his departed friends and coming to peace with his decision -- not without sadness, but without bitterness or rancor.

    And again, the band is making it's presence more known on this than on the second album; the celeste and strings add so much, as do the two acoustic guitars, chugging along -- it's really loungey and relaxing, it would sound great at Lago di Garda. Gorgeous.

    5/5
     
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  5. Vagabone

    Vagabone Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    But Sleep the Clock Around is quite uptempo, no?

    Ease Your Feet Into the Sea is a beautiful song and I'm sure "Sinister"-era purists who are wary of this album's musical direction must find satisfaction in this song at least (and in the one after).
    Fourth track on the album, and the fourth one I'm giving a 4.
     
  6. TheGoodDoctor

    TheGoodDoctor It used to go something like that

    Location:
    London
    I find Summer the weakest of the opening tracks
     
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  7. Grower of Mushrooms

    Grower of Mushrooms Omnivorous mammalian bipedal entity.

    Location:
    Glasgow
    A very sad song if the assertion about it dealing with a friend's suicide is correct. The lyric would certainly bear that out.

    It's lovely though and it deserves 5/5.

    I like the explanation from the BBC Radio Scotland documentary that the title had been inspired by a modified Ayrshire rail carriage warning to Please Do Not Put Your Feet On The Seats.

    My personal favourite such derivation was to Obstruct The Doors And Be Dangerous.
     
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  8. Sammy Waslow

    Sammy Waslow Just watching the show

    Location:
    Ireland
    Good looks will always open doors for a girl.
     
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  9. BeardedSteven

    BeardedSteven Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern Indiana
    Ease Your Feet is one of the more understated songs on the album. But I think it's just perfect as is. I never picked up on the suicide part of it for years. I thought it was about taking it easy at the seaside. :oops: It does have a Sinister feel to it. 5/5.
     
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  10. Gavaxeman

    Gavaxeman Take me back to dear old Blighty...

    Location:
    West Midlands U.K.
    Ease your feet...

    Quietly inoffensive track, not a standout , but a solid enough album track 3/5
     
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  11. therunner

    therunner Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    "Ease Your Feet In The Sea" manages to sound like such a typical example of a Stuart mid-tempo melodic piece of loveliness, while at the same time sounding different from all of his other songs. How does he do that over and over again ? Brilliant.

    I love this song but I have to be a bit harsh and deduct a point for there being no real melodic change throughout, which keeps it from being a true B&S classic for me.

    4/5
     
  12. Sammy Waslow

    Sammy Waslow Just watching the show

    Location:
    Ireland
    Perfectly fine and a nice arrangement, but not enough to make it a standout for me. I was going to give it 4, but I kind of regard it more as respectably mid-tier.
    3/5
     
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  13. vivresavie

    vivresavie Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sweden
    Are you insinuating that she's just a pretty face with no talent? I had no idea what she looked like when I fell in love with her music. Murdoch is also very pretty.
    She's been treated horribly by the music industry. She was even forbidden to release her own music until Cooking Vinyl came to the rescue. It makes me cry. A CEO at her publishing company told her that she only got 4 years left because you’ll be older, nobody wants to look at you, you’ll be repellent. Would anyone say this to Murdoch? If your female, the focus will always be on your physical appearance. This can't be fun for serious and genuinely talented artists like Isobel. If she was male, we would probably have had much more Isobel music by now. It's not a lack of creativity, just a ****ed up music industry:realmad:
     
  14. irong

    irong Forum Resident

    Location:
    Quebec, Canada
    Ease Your Feet in the Sea: 4/5

    Great lead guitar. It's well-written song that adresses a difficult topic in a suble manner. Again, the lack of dynamics (what I mean by that is, not much variation in rhythm an loudness between the parts of the song; like an evenness of the whole song) and the somehow restrained vocal delivery bugs me a little bit. Just a matter of personal taste.

    About Isobell, there is no reason to assume she got there mostly because of her looks. She's a competent trained musician, and the good luck she had is that she met the right people at the right time (in many possible worlds she ends up being a simple session musician). Of course, good-looking people can get away with stuff other people can't (her white socks in leather sandals in the Century of Fakers video is telling; 99.9% of humanity would look like complete dorks, but when it's her it's hip...). On the other hand, good looking women are often treated like disposable material, are not taken seriously, are percieved as superficial, etc. So I'm enclined to believe it's a double-edged sword.
     
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  15. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    Our votes for "Ease Your Feet in the Sea"

    1-0
    2-0
    3-2
    4-3
    5-3
    Average: 4.125
     
  16. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    Today's song is "A Summer Wasting", written by Stuart Murdoch and credited to Belle and Sebastian; produced and engineered by Tony Doogan.

    Spotify: A Summer Wasting
    LYRIC.
     
  17. TheGoodDoctor

    TheGoodDoctor It used to go something like that

    Location:
    London
    I can definitely relate to wasted summers of my youth. Anyway, it’s a reasonably good song but I think it’s weaker than what came before it on the LP.
     
  18. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    For me it's perfect.

    I love the lyric and the easy, sweet-yet-melancholy melody really reminds me of the end of summer, those first gusts of cooler autumn on an otherwise hot day. But it transcends that, to me, summer can be a metaphor...for many things, for life and youth itself; I can imagine Stuart Murdoch, holed up sick in his room for so many years looking at the world outside and constructing an idyllic summer-time in his mind; there's an almost ancient yearning in this song.

    And there's kind of a seasonal thing going on in the record, maybe, wiht the last song's almost bossanova groove meaguing into this...

    There's a sort of '66 era Simon and Garfunkel feel to all this, a sort of poetic cutesiness; and some people can't stand that. But NUTS TO THEM.

    I also love the really swinging middle bit, with Sarah's violin soaring into the heavens and the drums swinging with abandon, pure youthful joy and another incredible moment on this album.

    Another 5/5 for me.
     
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  19. Sammy Waslow

    Sammy Waslow Just watching the show

    Location:
    Ireland
    Er... my quote (which I evidently should have put in inverted commas to convey it was a quote) is the last line from Stuart's short story on the back of "Tigermilk", and was intended both affectionately and as an in-joke. It's certainly not meant to be disparaging towards Isobel, whose musical and vocal contributions to the band are among my favourite Belle and Sebastian moments.

    And I know all about Isobel's struggles with getting her latest album finally out there, an album I bought on the day of release. Talent will out.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jul 3, 2020
  20. TheGoodDoctor

    TheGoodDoctor It used to go something like that

    Location:
    London
  21. Vagabone

    Vagabone Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    "A Summer Wasting" I could relate to to a ridiculous level, and I also thought the tune, arrangement and performance are perfect. Even though I love very short songs, I could stand a bit more of it.
    So instantly appealing. Admittedly it does not reveal any hidden depths on repeated listening. The initial appeal is all there is. But it's a lot. 5/5
     
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  22. croquetlawns

    croquetlawns Forum Resident

    Location:
    Scotland
    A great track - possibly my favourite on the album so far - 4.8/5.
     
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  23. BeardedSteven

    BeardedSteven Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern Indiana
    A Summer Wasting is an absolute gem. It packs a big punch in its too short two minutes. They could have easily made this song longer but I'm glad they didn't. It's perfect as is. 5/5.
     
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  24. therunner

    therunner Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    Like with the opening track which was also just over 2 minutes, I can never decide whether I wish "A Summer Wasting" was longer or whether the whole point is to be short-and-sweet and maybe it would detract from the impact by being longer.

    Curiously, "A Summer Wasting" is mainly made up of choruses with much shorter verses, in direct contrast to the previous song "Ease Your Feet In The Sea" which is all verses and no chorus and more typical of B&S songs, so "A Summer Wasting" always stands out for me due to that difference as well as the fact that I love the melody and simple relatable sentiment.

    4/5
     
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  25. Sammy Waslow

    Sammy Waslow Just watching the show

    Location:
    Ireland
    Great in its own right, but I also always thought this was very well placed in the sequence of the album. It provides a welcome injection of energy.
    4/5
     
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