Belle and Sebastian - What to Look For in Summer

Released in the final weeks of 2020, no doubt, the live album What to Look For in Summer is one of my favorite discs of the recent months.

Having presumably heard it all by the late 90s, Belle and Sebastian grabbed me hard. While most of my musical tastes like the Smiths were literate and fey, they were also undeniably rock based. Belle and Sebastian made music like they were in world where bands like Led Zeppelin and the Clash never existed.

Predicting where this band who started as a rather faceless collective would be 25 years later would have been next to impossible.

For me, the changes threw me for awhile, but I came to appreciate the new sound. It’s not a particularly unique insight. No one would have expected such an interactive live band.

But here over 23 songs from various locales, their personality shows through in what is a truly wonderful two disc set.

For me, the reason I love this album is that it has the same characteristics of what made the early band so good- wide-eyed, playful troubadours. Think Donovan or any number of late 60s/early 70s songwriters.

Do musicians still have that first album innocence in their live shows 30 years later. The Stones, the Kinks, U2, The Who, Robert Plant? (I don’t know. I’m asking. I never thought about it before).

So with a mix of vocalists and songs, and the band claiming inspiration from the great live 1970s Prog albums, no doubt the grand moment is as one might expect A seven and a half minute version of The Boy With The Arab Strap.

That said, with many possibilities, the song I’m going to share is an unlikely one. Step Into My Office, Baby was the opening single from the Trevor Horn produced 2003 album Dear Catastrophe Waitress- a sharp movement into the bands current style.

I don’t hate it- it’s got that poppy 1960s style like maybe something Divine Comedy would do, but I don’t love it, either- it’s a list of bad office sex jokes that seemed stale even before Matt Lauer and MeToo- even if the song generally flips the gender roles. However, it has my favorite moment of the set- a giddy moment like much of the rest of the set where the band switches out the lyric “burned out after Thatcher” with the new resident of 10 Downing Street.