Sinister: what if...

[Kieran Devaney]

Dear Mr. Gates,

May I call you Gareth? I know a lot of your fans call you that, I assume 
without having first acquired your permission, which strikes me as being 
somewhat impertinent, so I thought it best to ask in advance of what will 
hopefully be a fruitful and lengthy correspondence between the two of us. I 
represent, and I hope I use the word to its full effect here, the hearts and 
minds of an internet group known as Sinister, which is a fan-orientated 
mailing list for the band Belle and Sebastian. I could imagine that a gifted 
musical connoisseur such as yourself would be familiar with the band’s work 
(in fact it would not at all surprise me to discover you a fan of the 
various side projects undertaken by the band’s members!). However, given 
your strenuous schedule of touring, recording and promotion it’s feasible 
that the strictures of time and fame have prevented you from yet 
encountering their music, though I am more than sure that the band are 
familiar with yours.

But now we come to a trickier part of this letter, because as much as I 
enjoy the records you have made to date, which is a great deal let me tell 
you, I play them all the time, and I always look out for your appearances on 
television - I have a large collection of them on tape - but despite all 
that I feel as though you have not yet found a song which does full justice 
to your astonishing voice. Let me pause here to talk a little about your 
voice Mr. Gates, though I am never quite sure where to begin when discussing 
it - its soaring, euphoric cadences, rolling like Scottish hills in the 
autumn mist, its gentle, almost child-like lilt through those most touching 
passages. I think you have the voice of a generation. Unique, sonorous, 
versatile, equally as powerful as the lion and as graceful as the gazelle it 
hunts, as timid and coy as the otter and as proud and glorious as the eagle. 
This voice, so potentially epoch making in its scope and clout has so far, 
in my most humble opinion, been ill-served with the songs it has been given. 
So far it has been your voice, and that alone, which has made your work 
worth taking note of. Let me make it clear though, that I take nothing away 
from those songs, I love them with all my heart, to hear a word against them 
is to charge my blood with a rage both great and terrifying. And yet, and 
yet, they seem to take us only as far as the brink of the abyss, if you’ll 
pardon the metaphor, and just as Nietzsche mocked Kant for finding the key 
to the cage, but choosing to remain inside, so too has your record company 
found that key, which is you, but seems reluctant, lord knows why, to let 
you take that leap, and throw us headfirst into a new era of musical 
innovation.

As your keen, acute intellect may have discerned, I feel that I have such a 
song for you to sing, a song that will take us beyond that barrier and into 
a musical realm that has eluded us all for so long. But I have erred 
slightly, the ‘I’ in that last sentence should rather be ‘we’, for, as I 
mentioned, I represent a whole organisation of Belle and Sebastian fans, 
and, following extensive enquiry, debate and, it must be said, heated 
argument, we have collectively concluded that there is a B&S song which we 
believe will take your career to that next level, the level I know you 
deserve, why, the very first time I heard you sing on Pop Idol I knew it, 
and time has only served to nurture that belief, to make it stronger and 
more fervent.

There is a Belle and Sebastian song called ‘Chalet Lines’. It is a doleful, 
but beautiful ballad about the rape of a woman, and yet dealt with with such 
moving sensitivity, such grace and care that it never comes across as crass 
and ungainly. This is the song we think you should sing. If you have not yet 
heard the song, I would urge you to listen to it, listen hard and true and I 
think you will agree that it seems almost deliberately written for the 
sweeping grandeur and elegant tones of your voice. I think a more sure fire 
hit record has never been conceived. I implore you to consider this Mr. 
Gates, if not for yourself, if not for us at the Sinister list, then for 
music itself. Much is at stake.

Yours Sincerely,
Kieran Devaney and Sinister

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