SOUNDTRACK: THE GO-BETWEENS-“Streets of Your Town” (1988).
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.
The Go-Betweens were the brainchild of wonderful songwriters Robert Forster and Grant McLennan. They wrote beautiful poppy, catchy songs, often with dark lyrics.
“Streets of Your Town” starts out with a boppy beat and a catchy guitar riff. It opens with the chorus–“round and round, up and down, through the streets of your town.” Then the tone shifts.
The verse is still musically perky but then you get this lyric
,And don’t the sun look good today?
But the rain is on its way
Watch the butcher shine his knives
And this town is full of battered wives
Right back into the bouncy chorus. This was a pretty big single for them and yet those lyrics. A perfect study for a budding sonmgrwiter.
[READ: February 3, 2021] “Waiting for To-Go”
This is a short Shouts and Murmurs piece from Sam Lipsyte. I have really enjoyed his stories but realized I haven’t seen anything from him in a while. This, like many Shouts and Murmurs, seems pretty funny but in reflection, is only mildly amusing.
The title is part of the joke in this piece.
Two people named E and V (see Beckett) are sitting in a room gazing at their phones
In the first scene one of them says he heard a podcast about the Neolithic or something. The other asks if that was the Stone Age, but he says no, they had copper, like copper axes.
The second person says copper sounds nice, but he is referring to the copper pan that he just bought,
In scene two, later tin the night, one of them, looking at his phone, says “My God. That’s amazing.”
What is it?
No.
What?
Nothing.
Oh.
Scene three has them watching TV and looking at their phones. They are trying to remember if they have seen this show before. They ultimately decide that they can watch it again and that would be okay.
In the next scene there is an outburst as E is trying to do work. When V walks in E shouts
E: Do you think it’s at all possible that you could find some corner or closet or some fucking crevice in this motherfucking bullshit how-about-I-just-kill-myself-now apartment that you could just sort of, I don’t know, fold yourself into and disappear for the next six or seven hours?
V: I guess anything’s possible.
The end has more mild excitement and then more looking at phones. An amusing update of a classic story
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