SOUNDTRACK: EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL-“Ballad of the Times” (1985).
In Stuart David’s book, In The All-Night Café, he lists the songs on a mixtape that Stuart Murdoch gave to him when they first met.
Although I’ve been a fan of Belle & Sebastian for a long time, I knew almost none of the songs on this mixtape. So, much like Stuart David, I’m listening to them for the first time trying to see how they inspire Stuart Murdoch.
In the book, David writes how much he does not like “rock,” especially music based around bluesy rock. Most of these songs, accordingly, do not do that. In fact, most of these songs are (unsurprisingly) soft and delicate.
Of course I know of Everything But the Girl, they really took off a few years after this album came out. Indeed, their sound changed quite a lot since this first album.
But I never really listened to them. Of course, I knew their song “Missing” (“like the deserts miss the rain”) which was pretty ubiquitous in mid 1990s. But in the mid 1980s, the band’s sound was very different–characterized by jangly guitars and a more upbeat feel.
Love Not Money was the band’ second album. The first song on the album “When All’s Well” has a very distinctive feel like The Smiths–with the picked echoing guitars and louder grooving bass. But “Ballad of the Time” is a bit more downbeat (as a ballad should be). There’s some big overdubbed guitars on top of the pretty picked melody. It’s catchy in a very “of its time” way.
Interestingly, this album apparently sounds unlike anything else in their collection, which makes me think Stuart wouldn’t have pit a later song on the mix.
[READ: December 29, 2020] Solutions and Other Problems
Seven years ago I read and loved Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh’s first book. So I was pretty excited that Allie Brosh had a new book out. Apparently she has gone through some stuff in the last seven years which I won’t go into.
Instead, I want to talk about how freaking funny this book is.
I hadn’t considered or realized that her art style had changed much since the last book. Although comparing the covers, I see that her drawings do seem more sophisticated–which somehow makes her characters look even crazier. I love that that yellow oval on her head is her hair. And the massive eyes. And that crazy smile. It’s bonkers and hilarious.
This book starts out with a bang–a very funny story about a young Allie getting stuck in a bucket. But the best part is that she was in the bucket because she felt the need to get her whole body into the bucket. She looked at the bucket and looked at her body and decided that one needed to be in the other. The look on her face (and then later on her parents’ faces when they find her in the bucket) makes me laugh just thinking about it.
“Richard” is all about a person who lives next door. Young Allie couldn’t quite grasp the idea that someone lived not in their house. She never even thought about the next door house until Richard walked out of it one day. So she snuck in through the cat door and started investigating the neighbor, She would also steal trinkets on each trip. And occasionally leave a “gift” (like a creepy drawing). When her parents found some things, they asked her about it and she said she was “hanging out” with Richard. This obviously made her parents…uneasy. Poor Richard. She went too far when she stole Richard’s cat.
“Neighbor Kid” is a crazy hilarious story about adult Allie’s neighbor kid (the drawing is wonderfully evil looking). Every time Allie walks by the kid says “Do you want to see my room?” Every day she asks and sometimes adds details like saying how great the room is–“it’s purple,” “it has six lamps.” Finally, it turns into “You will see my room today.”
And then a wonderful book-only joke. She pauses the neighbor kid story and then says she will loop back on it with a little warning symbol.
Another hilarious things is a short aside when she says hi to another kid and when the kid said “How are you?” she replied “Goog.” There’s no good way to come back from that.
“Poop Mystery” had me crying. Literally. The family finds horse poop in the house. Why? How did it get there? Suspect #1: Horse. The poop is horse poop. Suspect #2 Other Horse. Other horse sometimes make a face like this [hilarious picture]. So did the second, weird horse sneak into the house and poop everywhere? Suspect #3 Charlie (dog). 19 years old but still alive–possibly in contact with demon. Suspect #4 Murphy (dog). Murphy is guilty of many food related crimes and is currently on a diet. Suspect #5 Maddy (dog) seems guilty all the time. Has history of bringing random objects into the house. Motive: Who knows, nobody understands this dog. Suspect #6 Larger Child (Allie). Motive: will do unimaginably weird things for no reason. Suspect #7 smaller child is well-behaved but spends lots of time with horses.
The answer to the mystery is hilarious. And the drawings (the gleeful dogs) are amazing.
“Kangaroo Pig” is of course how her dog sees her. When Kangaroo Pig (Allie) gets drunk and angry the dog responds by sprinting around the room which leads to the dog crashing into a chair. It truly seems like the chair is doing this on purpose. “You are now permanently afraid of the chair.”
“Dandelions” is about Allie babysitting a child who suddenly decides that she is afraid of dandelions–while in a field of dandelions. How do you reason with a child that dandelions are not scary:
Hello. You are two. Dandelions are not scary. Therefore dandelions are not scary.
Amazingly, that doesn’t work.
“Bananas” is a hilarious fight between Allie and her ex-husband Duncan. She gets mad at him and the culmination of the (many many page) fight is her telling him “you don’t get to choose the bananas anymore.”
“The Dog Pile Dog” is about a large hairy dog who had liver disease. This exhibited itself in a distended stomach. Every one though the dog was pregnant. People were very uncomfortable around the dog. The first part is about this enormous dog’s attempts to be sneaky about getting food. The second part is about how they had to shave her in the summer and how someone looks at her and genuinely can’t determine what kind of animal it is.
“Worlds Greatest Cup” is about a fight she gets into with her car: “You are not listen music. I look again [I am stereo] and I [stereo] see you are still not listen music still.”
“Fairness” is a story about revenge and fairness in the world. Allie’s neighbor is a man with a hammer who would start hammering before 8AM. And with no one to stop him he might hammer as much as he wanted. Whenever and wherever he wanted. Her form of justice was to put a stick in the man’s yard. Every day. He would remove it and the next day she would put it back. Did he ever connect the two? Who knows. But it felt like revenge. And then one day–she switched it to a grapefruit. What does it mean?
The reappearance of the five year old next door neighbor comes, as promised, in a hilarious way during “The Ultimate Plan.”
Many of the stories deal with dogs. Well, in “Cat” there’s finally a cat. A cat who has a fascinating love/hate relationship with a toy mouse. Allie’s understanding of the behavior is terrific.
Her criticism of the moral of “The Ugly Duckling” is not only funny it is very accurate.
The story about her sister (“Sister”) is also hilarious. Her sister had lots of friendships when they were younger and Allie was a bit jealous of that. But then there’s this amazing example.
One day I came home from school and Becky (sister’s friend) was duct-taped to a computer chair in our driveway. Then her sister brought out a salad bowl filled with water and egg yolks. She then grabbed Becky’s hands and put them in the bowl and shouted “FEEL THEM, BECKY! DO YOU LIKE THEM?” When she came back later they were studying like nothing had happened.
Fantastic.
The final chapter is Allie’s attempt to document how to become friends with yourself. It’s amazing any of us areever successful at it.
Contents:
Introduction: Balloon
Bucket
Richard
neighbor Kid
Poop Mystery
The Kangaroo Pig Gets Drunk
Daydreams
Dandelions
Bananas
Losing
The Pile Dog 1
The Pile Dog 2
World’s Greatest Cup
Fairness
Plans
The Ultimate Plan
Loving-Kindness Exercise
Cat
Fish Video
The Ugly Duckling 2
Throw-and-Find
Sister
A Nonspecific Story about an Animal
Friendship Spell
Friend
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