Belle and Sebastian is a band from Glasgow. Led by guitarist/vocalist Stuar… Read Full Bio ↴Belle and Sebastian is a band from Glasgow. Led by guitarist/vocalist Stuart Murdoch, the seven-piece band has an intimate, majestic sound that is equal parts folk-rock and '60s pop. Murdoch has a gift not only for whimsy and surrealism, but also for odd, unsettling lyrical detail which keeps the songs grounded in a tangible reality.

Belle and Sebastian released their first two albums in 1996: Tigermilk, recorded over three days, and If You're Feeling Sinister, recorded in a week, at the peak of the chamber pop movement. At first, some critics in Britain's music weeklies tied the band into the subgenre, yet the group was too pretty, too delicate, to bear that label. Through their first two years of public existence, the band shielded their personalities, submitting publicity photos featuring a girl, who was a friend of the band and reluctantly posing for photo shoots. Furthermore, they performed in odd venues, playing not only the standard coffeehouses and cafes, but also homes, church halls, and libraries.

Prior to the formation of Belle and Sebastian, Murdoch suffered from a protracted battle with chronic fatigue syndrome, which forced him to drop out of school and spend seven years living in his parents' home crippled by his condition.Whilst in his parents home, Murdoch wrote a short story about a boy named Sebastian and a girl named Isabelle based on the names from Madame Cecile Aubery's children's book Belle et Sebastian. On New Year's Day 1996, Stuart attended a party at which he met a young singer and cellist named Isobel Campbell. In a letter to his brother Fraser, Murdoch explained how he was making a single for Stow college at the end of February. Murdoch opted to use the name Belle&Sebastian for the project because it was occupying him at the time. Murdoch took to songwriting as an escapism from the four walls surrounding him in his room and eventually recorded demos with bassist Stuart David whom he met at a government training programme called Beatbox. Murdoch quickly met a series of other musicians through social and musical circles in his hometown Glasgow and they agreed to help with the Stow project. The members he found for this initial lineup were Stevie Jackson (guitar), Mick Cooke (trumpet), Chris Geddes (keyboards), Stuart David (bass), Richard Colburn (drums), and Isobel Campbell (cello). The Stow College record was to be issued by Electric Honey, but it turned into a full album. The course instructor Alan Rankine determined that Murdoch had enough good material to record a full LP and could do so if they could get it all done in three days, studio time allotted for the single. Murdoch and his musicians rose to the challenge and recorded ten tracks putting the songs in order as they would appear on the record and mostly completing them in just a few takes.

In May of 1996, Belle and Sebastian self-released their debut album, Tigermilk, on Electric Honey Records. Only 1,000 copies of the album, which was only pressed on vinyl, were released, but it unexpectedly became a sensation, earning terrific word of mouth throughout the UK. As a result, the band became slightly more than a school project — it became an actual band. If You're Feeling Sinister, released on the independent Jeepster label, followed in November of 1996. By the time the album was released in America on the EMI subsidiary The Enclave, it had earned considerable critical acclaim in the U.K. — not only from music weeklies, but from newspapers like The Sunday Times and magazines like The Face — and a large cult following; by some accounts, Tigermilk was being sold for as much as 75 pounds. Over the course of 1997, word of mouth continued to grow in America, even as the band pulled out of an American tour because The Enclave went bankrupt and closed.

As the band cult continued to build in 1997, Belle and Sebastian released three EPs — Dog on Wheels (May), Lazy Line Painter Jane (July), and 3.. 6.. 9 Seconds of Light (October). Each subsequent EP placed higher on the indie charts and received great critical acclaim. Later in the year, violinist Sarah Martin became a member of the band. By the end of the year, the group finalized an American deal with Matador Records, issuing The Boy With the Arab Strap in September 1998. The following year saw the eagerly anticipated wide re-release of Tigermilk, the album that started it all. It was the biggest selling album but is unpopular with the group themselves. Following completion of 2000's Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant, Stuart David left Belle and Sebastian to focus full-time on his solo project, Looper, being replaced by Bobby Kildea of V-Twin. In 2001, the group released two EPs — Jonathan David and I'm Waking Up to Us — and recorded the soundtrack for Todd Solondz's film Storytelling. Just before the soundtrack's release in spring 2002, Belle and Sebastian embarked on a comprehensive tour of the United States and Canada before returning to Europe for the summer festival season. Midway through the tour, Isobel Campbell left the band, citing the usual differences.

Another major change that soon took place was the band leaving Jeepster and Matador to sign with Rough Trade, with their next record, late 2003's Dear Catastrophe Waitress, produced by the inimitable Trevor Horn (who also produced Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Yes, and scores of others). The record spawned the brilliant "Step into My Office, Baby" and "I'm a Cuckoo" singles, the latter of which was the group's biggest U.K. hit, reaching number 14 in early 2004. After a long worldwide tour that found Belle and Sebastian reaching new levels of success, they retired to Scotland and began preparing for the recording of their seventh full length album, The Life Pursuit, released in 2006.
In 2010, they released their eighth full length album, Write About Love.

Official website: www.belleandsebastian.com

Slow Graffiti
Belle and Sebastian Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

There's a portrait
In a back room
Which I keep for days upon
Which I relent
And gaze for hours on
The muscle, skin and bone of some
Imaginary friend.

So how about it?
Show me please how I
Will look in twenty years
And let me please
Interpret history
In every line and scar
That's painted there in front of me.

It doesn't matter what I'm thinking
What I tell myself to do
I'll end up calling.

I stay in to defrost the fridge
Now the kid has gone to bed
A feeling of dread
At least when she's around
The trouble's there
It's worse to wake up with her
Falling round the room.

Listen Johnny, you're like a mother
To the girl you've fallen for,
And you're still falling

Listen Johnny, you're like a mother
To the girl you've fallen for,
And you're still falling

And if they come tonight

You'll roll up tight
And take whatever's coming to you next

Overall Meaning

The song Slow Graffiti by Belle and Sebastian is a reflective and introspective song that explores themes of self-doubt, aging, and the complexities of relationships. The opening lines of the song introduce the idea of a portrait in a back room that the singer keeps for days and gazes upon for hours. The portrait is of an imaginary friend and the singer wonders what they will look like in twenty years. The lines "And let me please / Interpret history / In every line and scar / That's painted there in front of me" suggest that the singer is looking for clues about their own future and trying to decipher what their own appearance might reveal about their life experiences.

The next few verses shift focus to the singer's present situation - they are staying in to defrost the fridge and feeling a sense of dread now that their child has gone to bed. The line "at least when she's around / The trouble's there" suggests that the singer is more at ease when their child is present, perhaps because the child represents a sense of purpose and stability. The final verses of the song return to the refrain of "Listen Johnny, you're like a mother / To the girl you've fallen for" which suggests that the singer is struggling with their own identity and their role in the relationship.

Overall, Slow Graffiti is a reflective and poignant song that deals with complex emotions and ideas. Through its intimate and introspective lyrics, the song encourages the listener to question their own experiences and consider what their own appearance and actions might reveal about their life.

Line by Line Meaning

There's a portrait
There is a painting

In a back room
It is kept hidden in a room at the back of a house

Which I keep for days upon
I hold onto it for days

Which I relent
I eventually give in to the urge to look at it

And gaze for hours on
I look at it for hours

The muscle, skin and bone of some
It depicts the muscles, skin, and bones of

Imaginary friend.
an imaginary friend.

So how about it?
How about showing me

Show me please how I
Please show me how I will

Will look in twenty years
look like in twenty years

And let me please
And please let me

Interpret history
understand the history

In every line and scar
behind every line and scar

That's painted there in front of me.
displayed in the painting in front of me.

It doesn't matter what I'm thinking
My thoughts are irrelevant

What I tell myself to do
No matter what I tell myself to do

I'll end up calling.
I'll eventually make a phone call

I stay in to defrost the fridge
I choose to stay inside the house and defrost the refrigerator

Now the kid has gone to bed
Now that my child is asleep

A feeling of dread
I feel anxious

At least when she's around
At least when my child is present

The trouble's there
There is already trouble present

It's worse to wake up with her
It's worse to wake up next to my child

Falling round the room.
As she moves around the room while asleep.

Listen Johnny, you're like a mother
Johnny, you are like a mother figure

To the girl you've fallen for,
To the girl you have fallen in love with

And you're still falling
And you are still in the process of falling

And if they come tonight
And if someone comes tonight

You'll roll up tight
You will curl up tightly

And take whatever's coming to you next
And accept whatever comes next

Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: CAMPBE, CHRISTOPHER GEDDES, ISOBEL CAMPBELL, MICHAEL COOKE, RICHARD COLBURN, SARAH MARTIN, STEPHEN JACKSON, STUART MURDOCH

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