Hello Sinister
Hello…?
Sinister…?
Oh well. I'll assume you can hear me, until I receive news to the contrary.
I woke up this morning, Sinister, with The Model in my head. The song, that is,
by Belle & Sebastian. Out of nowhere. While listening to Nick Clegg and to Will
Self and to Justin Webb on the Today Programme, while eating my breakfast and
cleaning my teeth, lines of the song kept popping into my mind: "Judy learnt a
lot from putting on blindfold", "Because I have been sleeping badly lately",
"It's days and months before I'll see you again" – not lines of any
significance, by any stretch, but who can really fathom what our subconscious
chooses to send upstairs?
I mustn't have listened to that song – deliberately, at least – for maybe 5
years. Not through aversion, you understand, more through displacement. So with
a 40-minute walk to work ahead of me, I decided to put on FISHYCLAP and see how
it grabbed me, a decade since its release. I think YOU should too – it's not a
great album, but it's interesting, if you are (or were) a fan of the band. I
must admit, Sinister, that after all these years, I actually really enjoyed The
Clunker. Sure, it feels a bit spaghetti Western, a bit like a fancy dress
party, but there's a swing in its step that pulls it through any accusations of
insincerity. I Fought In A War is still a very elegant piece of songwriting.
The Model is as good as I remembered it (that is, very). Other tracks made me
smile too.
I still can't enjoy The Chalet Lines though, and Nice Day For A Sulk is an
awful song. And it amazed me, as I paced down Liverpool Road, avoiding the
patches of melting muddied snow, that ten years ago it was acceptable to put a
song as terrible as Family Tree onto a commercially released album – and that
was when people were still paying money for albums.
It also struck me, as I listened, that in a couple of weeks it'll be ten years
since I joined Sininster. Ten years since I was in Upper Sixth and pestering my
folks to "get the internet". I went for a nostalgic rummage around the archives
just now to remember how wonderful it all was – and once again, I think YOU
should too.
I listened to Belle & Sebastian today, deliberately, for the first time in
ages. I'm not sure why that happened today, but I'll listen to some more, soon.
x
================================
"He's strictly a pain in the ass, but
he certainly has a good vocabulary"
- Holden Caulfield
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