The Stars Of Track And Field (track)
by Belle And Sebastian

From sszwalbenest 06/15/2021 12:33 | #270663

Melody feels borrowed from VU.

Stripped back and with sarcastic reality; if you don’t like their wee usual twee, this could be for thee.
A brisk 4.49 1500m.
Just outside of Stuart Murdoch’s PB.

The race starts straight away but without fanfare. No starter gun. Guns for show, on-your-marks-get-set-go, for a wannabe miler pro.

Almost a capella and eschewing a pacemaker, it’s a gentle 58 sec opening lap. Murdoch reminisces about ‘the girl’ making, “a new cult every day to suit [her] affairs”. Is this a brood of boys (and/or a gaggle of girls)? Is cult a play on the c-word (or ‘back of the stairs’)? Does her cult orientate towards ‘c’ and ‘D’ depending on her mood, needs and goals? Signs of manipulation and mutilation of other’s emotions, with the regularity of these affairs. Is she using her c-word to disguise her true feelings. A musky, mushy mask to hide ‘les affaires’. Les affaires itself a play on “Les affaires sont les affaires” (Mirbeau’s Business is Business). The deal. The business. Getting the job done to further her position in life. A theme which develops further, less than 90 seconds later. Think Sally Gunnell in ‘92.

“Kissing girls in English at the back of the stairs”. Maybe, ‘Les Affaires’, is an analogy for sexual proclivities. And what is ‘kissing in English’? Is this a French kiss but with a different side of the channel? Or maybe it is ‘embrasser un autre’ body part, potentially the ‘back of the stairs’? I don’t know what the ‘back of the stairs’ is but it is faintly arousing. Did the boys stare back as she kissed the back of the stairs? Is this the real stairway to heaven?

Terri’s following of innocent boys, suggest virginal tones, at least in their lane. For all their boyish bravado, they are inexperienced milers, failing to pace themselves to last even the first lap. They do not realise this. Terri does. And the boys certainly don’t know that she enjoys both Puma and Adidas running spikes. “They never know it because [she doesn’t] show it”. Maybe Terri hides the logo like Cruyff in ‘74. Terri always gets her way, her wicked way with innocent boys, whilst she dreams of the back stairs of girls. Is the obsession the back stairs or are the back stairs the obsession?

Does Terri film these boys and girls? Is that the session or is the fartlek the session?


58 seconds in and the first of two highlights:

“In his blue velour and silk
You liberated
A boy I never rated
And now he's throwing discus
For Liverpool and Widnes”

Brilliance.

Stuart Murdoch was a runner. You can touch the texture of the running kit with these lyrics. To an elite athlete representing Liverpool and Widnes, the cheap polyester singlet and crispy, crinkly, nylon shorts would have osmosed feelings of family pride. No records would be broken in these loose fit bad boys. TUE or no TUE. All that would be broken is the skin of tender thigh with unrestrained bollock-slap chaffe.

I don’t think ‘Liverpool and Widnes’ was an athletics entity. They lie 14 miles apart. Nearly half a Snickers. Murdoch could have run that in 1:25/1.20 maybe, but that’s too far for a joint athletics club. Maybe Runcorn & Widnes would have worked better. The use of ‘Run’ would have been apt too. Murdoch must do better.

‘Running’ is a recurring theme in B&S’s work. The video for ‘I’m a Cuckoo’, featuring Murdoch and Alan Wells, and the equally endearing, ‘The Loneliness of the Middle Distance Runner’. Murdoch stopped running at a decent level when M.E. took hold when he was 21 (at least he avoided a stroke at the age of 24).

Running and faith is a common theme in Murdoch’s lyrics. The blue running shorts could be a symbol of this faith, of heaven, or just as easily the blue, lewd behaviour of Terri.

Murdoch blue. Rupert Mudoch blue. Oxford blue. Is that the knowledge you need to get you into college? Maybe in America it is, but not at Oxford?

More likely, the blue is a reference to Murdoch being a (Glasgow) Rangers fan and he is blue due to the sectarian abuse of Mo Johnston. Mo Johnston also had to face crossing the channel, both physically (via Nantes) and mentally, to kiss in English at the back of the stairs. This is almost certainly an obtuse reference to Stairway 13 and the tragic Ibrox disaster of 1971.

Is the liberation sexual? Or does the liberation result in the confidence of the boy to reach new athletic heights. Unlikely; it appears to be the opposite. ‘Liverpool and Widnes’ is not national level. Maybe Terri sucked all of the talent out of the boy to heighten her chances of track and field success. The boy, never rated and written-off by the narrator, might have peaked at county level but has won his freedom from the fartleks and “the hours spent, the wilderness in training”. With less stringent training regimes, the boy has packed on the pounds, bulked up like Ryanair carry-on, and is happy to toss the discus at a lower standard. Having (back) stared Terri’s steroid filled obsession in the face, the boy is grateful to be off the treadmill.

Incidentally I always thought the lyrics continued to say, “And now he’s throwing...discuss?”, which includes the pause and question mark. This leaves ambiguity into what the boy is throwing now, instead of the discus; wobblies, up (maybe an eating order brought on after losing his virginity to Terri and his subsequent weight gain), orgies?

Instead the official lyrics are, “And now he’s doing...business”. Does this allude back to ‘les affaires’ in the first line? Is Boy now in business? What is Boy’s business? Is he a pimp? Is he Terri’s pimp? Is he Terri’s agent?

It looks like Boy and Terri have moved on. Ironically, now that Terri wears skintight Lycra, she has to forgo the Terry towelled clothing that first enticed her to track and field. Terri can feel the city air run past her body but she longs for the innocence of textured Terry trunks disrupting the airflow around her back stairs.

Is it narrator’s lust? Narrator’s obsession? Terri was sexually liberal but seemingly never liberated the narrator. Does the narrator resent this? Was the narrator jealous of Boy.

“She had the moves, she had the speed, it went to her head". The sexual moves. The emotional moves. The wilderness of training and steroid abuse maddening Terri, polluting her inside and out. At least in the eyes of the narrator.

2:30 in and we listeners receive our second beautiful moment. Murdoch’s voice rises like legs around the top bend, final lap:

“She never needed anyone to get her round the track
But when she's on her back
She had the knowledge
To get her into college
But when she's on her back
She had the knowledge
To get her where she wanted”

Terri is a user. Uses men. Uses women. Uses performance enhancing drugs. To her fans she spends her life on two legs. To her real fans, her obsessives, she spends her life on her back, sucking in knowledge, talent and influence to get her into college. “But when she’s on her back”, she dreams of making those moves on ‘Her’ lap, perfectly positioned for the final sprint to the line off the bend. She’s got to where she wanted but is it what she wants...

The pace has gradually quickened throughout but you can feel the legs and arms pumping, striving for the victory She has always dreamed of...

“The stars of track and field, you are
The stars of track and field, you are
The stars of track and field are beautiful people”

She crossed the line before the final, “are beautiful people”, but we don’t know where she has finished. We never know. She might even be finished.

From the outside, athletes are beautiful people. Superficial. On the inside their obsession is ugly.


Great song. Great lyrics. 95 from me but it would be 100 if the lyrics actually were amended as per my notes above.

Ps. I don’t know what version of this (it must be the ‘Live at The Barbican’ version) I used to have on my MP3 player but it was quicker and all the better for it - Roger Bannister illusions.

NEXT: Lazy Line Painter Jane

Best song on the album

super track

From Space-Dementia 12/06/2015 17:31 | #154024

This song is so gorgeous. I just can't.

Amazing song