Oh cripes, I see a diatribe coming on... I've already privately emailed someone to say that I was in a pissy mood when I wrote my review, and emphasised the bad bits of the new album. "I Fought in a War" is a grate song, not a GRATE song. I really like it, again small letters. But I think I need to emphasise a point I should have given more importance to, and which is a very important point indeed when it comes to Belle and Sebastian. When I hear songs, especially when they're new to me, I listen almost entirely to (or rather I *hear*) the music. By music, I mean the way the rhythms, melodies, harmonies, walls-of-sound etc. interplay, which is picked up and appreciated by the musicky bit of my brain. It takes me a while to incorporate the effect of the lyrical content - a bit like learning the piano, starting with one finger, then one hand, and then, after a while, mastering the full range of possibilities. In practice, what this means is that, for me, a song like Blueboy's "Remember Me" can have as powerful an immediate effect as "Seeing other people". I know full well this doesn't happen to everybody. I wouldn't expect it to. But while Belle and Sebastian songs have on several occasions made me cry, it's been after a very long time knowing and loving them, when the words really begin to broach the walls of my psyche. The process is only just beginning with Fishyflaps; I have welled up during "The Chalet Lines", which I recognise is a very obvious choice, but maybe its very blatantness is the only reason it has managed to have an emotional effect with words. However, even when I get to know the words as well as the music, it's always the music by which a song lives or dies. Put the words of Slow Graffiti into the mouth of that cunt from the Lighthouse Family, it would still be a beautiful and poetic libretto, but you can bet your bottom dollar the tune would still be dreadful. Essentially, the implications regarding FYHCYWLAP are that because of the subtle beauty and depth of (most of) Struan's lyrics, it's going to take me a long time before I can full appreciate the words, and therefore the song as an entity. So at present I am mostly focussing on the music. I Fought in a War is indeed a beautiful song, but can anyone honestly say they had no idea how it was going to develop the first time they heard it? Reading this back to myself, I see that this is really a very self-indulgent letter, describing how the mind of one amongst a thousand interprets the music that forms our common ground. Sorry about that. BG Mark xxx ******************************************************************* Please Note that from the 17th of June, the HIT UK address changes to - HIT Entertainment PLC 5th Floor, Maple House 141-150 Tottenham Court Road LONDON, W1P 9LL Tel: +44 (20)7 224 1717 Fax: +44 (20)7 224 1719 The contents of this e mail from HIT Entertainment PLC are confidential and intended for the addressee only. If you are not the intended recipient you must not copy or further distribute this e mail; please notify us by telephone on 020 7224 1717, and delete the e mail from your computer. This e mail has been checked by our anti-virus system before leaving us; we accept no responsibility for the e mail and any attachments once they leave us. www.hitentertainment.com www.bobthebuilder.org ******************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "peculiarly deranged fanbase" "frighteningly named +-+ +-+ Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+