So far this week I’ve concentrated on Belle and Sebastian’s early work, but now I jump ahead to their last studio album, 2006’s The Life Pursuit. This is their least twee effort to date, with a more muscular, fleshed-out sound and more complicated production.
Some fans aren’t thrilled with the direction the band has taken on this album and its predecessor, Dear Catastrophe Waitress, but I feel the opposite. I consider this some of their strongest work and song-for-song The Life Pursuit might be their most consistently excellent album. All the usual touches are there but also a confidence and a taste for experimentation that suits them well.
The album’s first single, ‘Another Sunny Day,’ is an exuberant burst of… wait for it… jangle pop with a playful lead bass line, wonderful piano-guitar interplay and delightfully retro backing vocals.
Lyrically, this song is a mirror opposite of the earlier songs I highlighted, in which tales of loneliness were topped off in the last verse with a spark of hope. ‘Another Sunny Day’ buoyantly recounts a summer love affair through five of its six verses before turning on a dime and watching the whole thing crash and burn in the final lines.
I love the descriptive lines here, as when the singer is inspired to greatness by his lover’s presence during a game of football: “I saw you in the corner of my eye on the sidelines / Your dark mascara bids me to historical deeds.” And his account of a bug in the eye that leads to a kiss is priceless.
You were digging plants, I dug you, beg your pardon
I took a photograph of you in the herbaceous border
It broke the heart of men and flowers and girls and trees
Another rainy day, we’re trapped inside with a train set
Chocolate on the boil, steamy windows when we met
You’ve got the attic window looking out on the cathedral
And on a Sunday evening bells ring out in the dusk
Another day in June, we’ll pick eleven for football
We’re playing for our lives, the referee gives us fuck-all
I saw you in the corner of my eye on the sidelines
Your dark mascara bids me to historical deeds
Everybody’s gone, you picked me up for a long drive
We take the tourist route, the nights are light until midnight
We took the evening ferry over to the peninsula
We found the avenue of trees, went up to the hill
That crazy avenue of trees, I’m living there still
There’s something in my eye, a little midge so beguiling
Sacrificed his life to bring us both eye to eye
I heard the Eskimos remove obstructions with tongues, dear
You missed my eye, I wonder why, I didn’t complain
You missed my eye, I wonder why, please do it again
The loving is a mess, what happened to all of the feeling?
I thought it was for real; babies, rings and fools kneeling
And words of pledging trust and lifetimes stretching forever
So what went wrong? It was a lie, it crumbled apart
Ghost figures of past, present, future haunting the heart
Meet Me In Montauk 
very nice jangle pop tune. Seems to have a Kinks and Byrds influence to it.
I have to imagine the song name is in homage to Another Sunny Day, the solo project of Harvey Williams