Canon in Miniature #191

Belle and Sebastian Sing Jonathan David

2001; Jeepster

The timing of this release doesn’t make sense. At this point in their career Belle and Sebastian were in their ‘difficult’ stage; 2000’s Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant wasn’t well received at all and neither was its companion single “Legal Man,” their next foray would be the even less well-received soundtrack for Todd Solondz’ Storytelling. This isn’t the time you’d expect them to release an EP full of sunshine-y pop that hearkened back to the carefree yet mordant tone of The Boy With the Arab Strap. This isn’t the time you’d expect them to start sounding like themselves, especially in hindsight, though at the time I can imagine that his was refreshing for those fans who were frustrated with the band’s direction. This is what allows Sing Jonathan David to be praised as highly as it seems to be despite not being a great work; it’s surroundings are so dire and muddled that it can’t help but feel like a shining beacon of what this group can still do when they put their mind to it.

I’m nowhere near as down on this as I am with the band’s supposed return to form a few years later, but I can’t say that I don’t have a host of issues with it. It’s the whole ‘pleasant’ thing again; this is a set of three songs that aren’t bad or good in compelling ways, they’re consistently middle of the road and that makes them difficult to praise all that effusively without contextualization. They’re good by the standards of their immediate surroundings, true, but when you move the frame of reference to encompass the band’s full discography they don’t hold up nearly as well. “Jonathan David” is as pure a pop song as they’ve written, and it’s always nice to hear Stevie Jackson get a lead vocal even if he’s a less distinctive presence than Stuart Murdoch, but it never bothers to go beyond that the way that their best songs did. The lyrics are fine but they aren’t memorable or quotable, and the tune itself is equally anodyne. It’s the archetypal song that does just enough good to stop it from being bad but can’t be arsed to follow through enough to be great. It’s a bit lazy, and B&S aren’t usually one for laziness even in moments less pleasant than this.

The rest of the EP fares a bit better, thankfully. I’m particularly taken by the ornate, vaguely country tinged “Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It” as a nice demonstration of just how much a great arrangement can add to any B&S song. It could also be that it calls “Slow Graffiti” to mind in its tone and production, and that’s one of the better songs from their back catalogue that they could call to mind. “The Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner” is almost as good, but suffers for not quite matching its earlier BBC session incarnation. It’s still a damned good song in this incarnation though, and probably has the best lyrics of the whole EP (side effect of being a holdover from the band’s golden era? Probably.) Despite all that though, I still maintain that this is more valuable as a symbol than as a release in its own right. As a reminder that Murdoch and company could still churn out this type of material while in the midst of a less than great streak it’s welcome and sort of wonderful. As a Belle and Sebastian EP on the whole it doesn’t hit the mark quite as hard. [6.4]

OK, personal bitching note here: this placing ahead of the fantastic “I’m Waking Up to Us” and the GOAT This Is Just a Modern Rock Song EPs makes me hate it more than it deserves to be hated on a qualitative level. I tried not to let that affect my overall rating, but I need to get it off my chest regardless.