A song that makes me fall asleep

by Matt Sheret

Odd one this.

I was lying in bed in the throes of what I can only assume was the worst sickness a human can survive, when I started to play The Life Pursuit. Belle and Sebastian’s last record seemed to disappoint just about everyone who heard it, but I was pretty taken with it at the time. Playing it became a reassuring blanket I could wrap my ears in. I thought of sunshine, I thought of iced drinks, I thought of cuddles and books and I started to drift to sleep…

…I started to wake up…

…I started to drift to sleep…

…I started to hallucinate… trapped in my head, shut in my box-room, unable to think or move or sleep I heard over and over again the chorus to ‘The Blues Are Still Blue’. As the shadows in the room danced about and my record lights blinked on and off I started to feel totally strange. My finger felt warped, I couldn’t see without the world becoming Wonderland, I couldn’t hear anything except Stuart Murdoch and his twee pals lamping about my ears warbling about the nature of his washing. I really didn’t hear any other part of this song. Just the chorus. The shirts, the washing, the blue the white the grey, I couldn’t throw up, but I have a fair feeling that it wouldn’t have been yellow, wouldn’t have been green, but would have been this faded sky shade. It was like being taunted.

After I woke, properly, covered in sweat, I promised myself I would skip the song whenever I played it. I deleted it from iTunes, removed it from my mp3 player, stopped other people playing it.

I will never, ever play Belle and Sebastian at bed time again. Never not once.