SOUNDTRACK: THE WEATHER PROPHETS-“Almost Prayed” (1987).
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
I’ve been listening to all of these songs on Spotify. So far, most of the songs have been deep cuts, but this one was The Weather Prophets’ number one song.
I’d never heard of them. They put out two albums on the Creation label (in fact, Creation head honcho Alan McGee played bass in the band for a short time), and so it’s probably no surprise that they sound a but like The Stone Roses. This is, so far, the bounciest and most immediately catchy song on the mixtape.
The guitars jangle, although not as much as in some of the other songs. Like in most of the other songs, the singer kind of sing-speaks, although less than the others. The biggest difference with this is that it really moves along a clip–much faster than the other songs. A good pick me up in a mix tape.
[READ: January 20, 2021] “Bulldog”
I know that fiction is not true. I know that. But realistic fiction tends to be based on something. So if this is based on something, then either Arthur Miller lived a very different life than I could imagine or things were very different in the 1920s. I also had no idea that Arthur Miller was still alive in 2001 (he died in 2005).
This is a fairly simple story: a thirteen year-old boy sees an ad for puppies for sale. They are brindle bulldogs for sale for $3 each. The boy has some money (although $3 is a large chunk of it). He bought an apple tree and a pear tree last year (30 cents each), so he is accustomed to spending money. But his family has never had a dog–his brother even makes fun of him for wanting one. What are you going to feed it, soup?
He travels across the city to the apartment in Brooklyn. The woman opens the door in a robe and seems annoyed. When he says he’s there for the dog, she loosens up and invites him in. She asks his age and when he says 13 she seems tickled by that.
The look at the puppies. He had looked up what the puppies should look like in the World Book, but there were no pictures of brindle bulldogs. He thought these puppies were just brown and didn’t look like a bulldog at all.
While he was holding the puppy, she sat next to him and her robe opened. She was naked. She kissed him and soon they were on the carpet together.
What?
He left with the puppy (she didn’t take the money) and spent the whole ide home thinking about what had happened,
When he got home, he showed off the dog to his mother who seemed very excitable (good and bad) about the dog.
They didn’t know anything about dogs, but Rover seemed to do well. Until one day the puppy got into a large cake that the boy’s mother had baked. It ate most of the cake and then started running around like crazy. Then he toppled over and panted heavily.
They called the ASPCA (not knowing who else to call) and a man arrived with a net. When they asked what was wrong with the dog he said, “What’s the matter with him is that he ate a cake.”
He took the dog away and wouldn’t say where it was going.
The boy isn’t that upset, although he did miss having the dog. Mostly he was wondering if the woman would see him again. He’d like to do with her what they did last time. He spends the rest of the story wondering if he can just call her back and stop by again–but what would he say about Rover?
Things were apparently very different back then.
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