missing dust jacket

song of the week: marx & engels

this here is put the book back on the shelf, a beautifully inventive collection of comics based on belle and sebastian songs. featuring some of the best talent in graphic writing and belle and sebastian's exceptional lyrical ability - i highly recommend this. i uploaded all the songs on which the comics were based onto my i-pod, and nerdily compared music, words and pictures on a recent train journey to the cotswolds. it was brilliant.

so, my song of the week is my favourite belle and sebastian song/comic marriage from put the book back on the shelf: marx & engels. i adore this song - it's softly melancholy and gently lilting and the girl/boy harmonies (yes, one of my favourite things in the whole wide wide world) are extremely satisfying and kind of affecting. but above all, the lyrics to the girl's harmony, sung breathily and lightly are: The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a revolutionary part to end all feudal, idyllic relationships. It has resolved personal worth and in place of freedom is exploitation for profit alone. There is a spectre of the past in my bold assertion. We could learn much from the past."

Surely that makes you smile just a little bit?

plus, the closing little instrumental ending is gorgeous and, as a former (just) riot grrl buff, the ending always makes me smile.

There was no intellect / That she could respect / If it couldn't see /That the girl just wants to be
Left alone with Marx and Engels for a while / She's writing in the style....of any riot girl

mark and engels is a very sweet, pure little love song which isn't really about love but kind of is, too, with a teasing dose of old fashioned prententious -undergraduate mocking. the comic is equally sweet and funny, but....perhaps a little bit bitter (tho still adoring) in its depiction of the girl from Wallasey. It's also pretty much every conversation I've had in any Student Union launderette - although, variously I've experienced the conversation from both the boy's and the girl's perspective.

I left university a year ago now, and i'm feeling quite nostalgic for the good old gower street days. Fortunately this will be cured soon when i meet up with my amazing former department office angel for drinks tomorrow - once she's regaled me with tales of intellectual bullying and horrific gossip along the lines of when-one-night-stands-go-wrong, i'll be sated for a few weeks.

anyway, must dash to watch university challenge now - at least its the professionals' series - they get easier questions, which is easier on my brain-mush ego.

and if they ask a question about t.s. eliot, the answer's probably the waste land - it has a 60% hit rate i've noted.

posted by raspberry beret @ 7:42:00 PM