“If She Wants Me”
from the album Dear Catastrophe Waitress
2003
iTunes
October 25, 2003:
Pop rarely is as funny, sad, clever, and flighty as Belle & Sebastian at their best and, heavenly choirs rejoice, for the first time in some years we have Belle & Sebastian at their best. For consistency of songs and performance, for sheer wittiness of lyric and poignancy of small tragedies, for utter irresistibility of melodies this is the best thing the Glaswegians have done since their second album, If You’re Feeling Sinister.
However, this time the songs come with more muscle than you might expect from a band that once redefined fey. Sure there is the familiar skeleton of softly spoken baroque pop with arrangements that can be precise and idiosyncratic — muted trumpet where you might expect guitar; timpani one minute, weeping strings the next and melodies that surely must snap at the first breath.
But now a song like “Wrapped Up in Books” (a title that is pure B&S) forgoes acoustic guitars and tippity-tap drums for rippling Rickenbacker guitar lines and bouncy rhythm. And “Roy Walker” all but tap dances up a wall Donald O’Connor-style it’s so cheery, with little glissandos on vibraphones, rising brass notes, a flash of guitar and loads of sneaky grinning percussion.
(Meanwhile, under the bright clothing you can still find those smarting bruises in stories such as the bullied schoolboy of Lord Anthony and the complex reactions of “Wrapped Up in Books.”)
You can’t swat these songs away with a cardigan pop dismissal. Not when “If She Wants Me” arrives as sexy, shimmering early-’70s smooth funk, as good as anything sharp-dancing, afro-sporting chaps in wide lapels would turn out. Not when it’s spiced with lines that verge on insouciant but actually just finish up feeling real, such as “If I could do just one near perfect thing I’d be happy / They’d write it on my grave or when they scattered my ashes / On second thoughts I’d rather hang about and be there with my best friend / If she wants me.”
Having already drawn from Bacharach, the Smiths, and Arran sweater-wearing folkies, on Dear Catastrophe Waitress, B&S glide into the ’70s and seem pretty comfortable, thank you.