Song 31: Lost in the Plot

Lost in the Plot - The Dears

You might recall me describing Belle and Sebastian as the Smiths of their generation. Not that they ever sounded the slightest bit like the Smiths. Whereas some bands really do sound a fair bit like the Smiths, or people say that they do. One band saddled with that description were British 90s nearly-men Gene, and another was the Canadian band of more recent times The Dears. You can understand why the label of Smiths-copyists was attached to both bands, though in both cases it was a little unfair, reductive and counter-productive.

In both cases, it was more to do with the literate, occasionally melancholy lyricism and vocal stylings rather than the actual sound of the band. Both were more muscular and conventionally rockist than the Smiths, and I say that as being no bad thing. Call me a philistine but I feel both Gene and The Dears went to anthemic, big-chorused, singalong places the Smiths never went to - it was never really in their remit. [I'm sure people would say There is a Light That Never Goes Out is anthemic, but its so graceful its anthemic qualities almost creep up on you, and anyway I'd say the Smiths don't have that much else like that].

Whereas Gene went straight for the heartstrings. To me, they're an unfairly maligned and discarded band - 'Olympian', 'For the Dead', 'Fighting Fit', 'We Could Be Kings', 'You'll Never Walk Again' and 'Speak to Me Someone' all have a place in my heart. I used 'Olympian' as a rallying cry for my university football team - I'm not sure how rousing my team-mates found it, but it worked for me!

Martin Rossiter, the bands's lead singer, has just released his first solo album several years after the band split, and it's really rather good. Not quite a rock comeback of the magnitude of Bowie's, but of interest to some.

The Dears received a fair bit of press in the early 2000s, and 'Lost in the Plot' was probably their biggest song - I remember one critic being a little dismissive of it though saying it sounded rather too much like Gene instead of the actual Smiths, but that only endeared it to me further.

The lead singer, Murray Lightburn, is a black Canadian, who was always presented as a grumpy, cantankerous fellow in interviews. Maybe because every interview seemed to go along the lines of
"He seems to become grumpy when asked about being a black singer in an indie band, and also about being compared to The Smiths. So my first question to him is "How does it feel  to be the black singer in an indie band which sounds like The Smiths?""
so I have no reason to think these interviews represented his natural disposition.

Is such shoehorning unavoidable? Well, I've mentioned it, albeit scathingly, but i've still mentioned it. There have been enough black indie rock stars that it really shouldn't be an issue, but perhaps it was that combined with The Smiths thing that proved irresistible to journalists.

Anyway 'Lost in the Plot' does sound more like Gene than the Smiths, but I, for one, prefer it to anything by either of them.

It's a rock song, dramatic and layered - it introduces itself with a bit of space-age guitar, then leads into his lovelorn verses and the then the sighing, resigned line "It's the same old plot to these things". The song then breaks down in a slightly funky way, and the line "Our love, don't mess with our love, 'cause our love is so much stronger" which again is repeated over again, while all the time the music behind is built up, with the guitars getting more jagged and pronounced, until it comes to a head and then that first tagline "It's the same old plot to these things" re-emerges.
Except this time the singing is not resigned - it's a fearsome howl which sends shockwaves through the listener. Simple but brilliant, a repeated line about repetition and ennui being sung like it's never been sung before with all the rage and passion that one man can muster, totally transforming the character of the song. I don't even know exactly why he's doing it and what the song means, but every time I hear it I think it's one of the cleverest, most glorious things I've ever heard.

Anyway, that's the Dears, quite often dramatic and orchestral and really not like The Smiths at all. They've got a few other wonderful songs, one called 'You and I are a Gang of Losers' and one called 'Whites Only Party' which I think are both great songs with great titles, which probably reflect quite a lot of the Dears' frustrations at their reception in the rock world.