Push Barman to Open Old Wounds

I had cause recently to want to hear the Belle and Sebastian song 'Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It', and that led me to relisten to the whole of the 2005 compilation 'Push Barman to Open Old Wounds', which collects their early EPs and singles.

When it came out, I did buy it, but I don't remember listening to it, in and of itself, that much, or paying it much heed, because I had all the songs and knew them perfectly well already. It was just a piece of B and S ephemera.

But, you know, holy shit, what a record! I do still listen to B & S, both in terms of going back to old stuff and hoping for the best with the new, but I'm certainly more distant from those songs than I was, and more able to see it all in context.

So, to think that this collection is "the 25 songs from a band's first six years of recording which they didn't include on the four albums they released in that time, including one album, maybe two, which was an all-time classic (the only crossover being different versions of The State I Am In)", rather than the career-spanning greatest hits that it sounds like, is quite a testament to Stuart Murdoch's relentlessly high quality writing at that time.

Taken as a whole, listened to on random, this collection is so enjoyable - there's maybe one or two throwaway tracks at most - everything else stands up in its own right, from Dog on Wheels to Winter Wooskie, The Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner to String Bean Jean. Every track that comes up, I'm listeing and going "oh yes, this one, I love this one".

It's maybe a little churlish to say this is as good as it got, that they never quite hit this peak again. Their biggest "hits" were to come (they had 11 Top 40 hits, not bad for a little band) and there were great songs and good albums to come, and they have tried to recreate this magic again with EPs and compilations, standard and surprise releases, but they were never so consistently emotive, evocative and unselfconscious again.

Supposing, and there's every likelihood this is the case, that a slightly later generation of fans really only know B and S from their albums (e.g. in the US I know there is a lot of focus on If You're Feeling Sinister as their singular masterpiece), imagine listening to this for the first time. What a joy that would be ...

Anyway, just for fun, though I know I've done it before, here's a 12-song B and S compilation, trying to be fair to every era:

I'm a Cuckoo

Nobody's Empire

The Loneliness of the Middle Distance Runner

Get Me Away from Here I'm Dying

Working Boy in New York City

I Didn't See it Coming

String Bean Jean

Lazy Line Painter Jane

If She Wants Me

My Wandering Days Are Over

The Stars of Track and Field

The State I Am In