Sometimes You Forget How Good Songs Are
I give my parents tons of music. So much, in fact, that I made them pay for their copy of the Meursault album. That sounds ridiculous, but it’s not as daft as it sounds: basically, I give them tons of music as it is and if I thought they were going to like it then I would have given them a copy already. Consequently, if they just wanted one for sentimental reasons… well so do a lot of people, and you aren’t going to make any money at all if you hand out freebies to everyone who thinks they are due one.
I played the album to them after they’d coughed up and, sure enough, it wasn’t really their kind of thing. I think it’s a lot to do with the electronics, but by and large it was no real surprise. As I said, if I’d have thought they were going to like it, they’d have had a copy already.
They loved Small Stretch of Land though.
Neil, from the band, says much the same thing. His parents are incredibly proud of him, but in all honesty they aren’t all that keen on the music… eeexcept for A Small Stretch of Land, which they love. In fact, pretty much everyone’s parents love Small Stretch of Land.
Scott from Frightened Rabbit (who has done more than anyone except perhaps Vic Galloway to promote Meursault far and wide, which is hugely appreciated by all of us) has taken to occasionally covering one of their songs, particularly when he plays solo. Which one? Yes, A Small Stretch of Land.
Of course, given he only plays a Meursault song from time to time, and mostly at solo shows, it makes sense for it to be one of the ones that suits the acoustic guitar, but the end effect of all this was still the same: I ended up forgetting just how fucking good this song is.
Salt Pt.2 was always my favourite of the maudlin ballads on Pissing on Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues and because Small Stretch of Land was the ‘obvious one’ in many ways, as evidenced by the general parent love and so on, I sort of forgot about it. But, as Lloyd Cole once sang, “The reason it’s a cliche is because it’s true.”
I’ve seen this song performed live twice recently, for the first time in nearly a year: once in somewhat confrontational fashion at the Queen’s Hall (video coming soon) and once in a small upstairs room in Leith. The massively different environments made the song sound totally different on both occasions, but it was fucking gorgeous on both. I really do have a bad habit of forgetting that sometimes the reason everyone likes something is because it just happens to be fucking brilliant.
Meursault – A Small Stretch of Land
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Does this mean you’ll finally be reviewing the new Lady Gaga album?
Haha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.
Ha ha.
No.
It’s a beautiful beautiful song. What a gift to be able to give to the world. Seriously.
The video is unlikely to see the light of day, unfortunately, because of crowd noise. But we’re working on it.
Yea…even from a songwriters perspective, you tend to write off the song that everyone likes as crap…well atleast I do…I usually like the underdogs the most.
This has been one of my favourites on the album since day one.
This song and a certain little number that comes right before it are the high point of the album’s journey for me.
And that’s not just because I’m a pop bitch.
This sounds like an acoustic Meursault.
I am a pop b*tch and this and Few Kind Words are my favourites.
I admit to only having picked up the album very recently – after the Queen’s Hall gig but I admit to being a tiny bit obsessed with Small Stretch of Land – I’m not sure what it’s about but to an extent that’s not important as I’ve figured out my own interpretation which is to do with being Scottish and being depressed.
It’s one of those songs that for me seems to emote a certain Scottishness, I don’t know why that is but I like it.
PS Have you, Toad, decided that FRabbit aren’t really that much like Snow Patrol yet?
No, Turnip, ‘fraid not.
i love neil, chris, calum, fraser and the hopfully i will love the 2 new bodies as equally soon enough.
The album is full of great ’songs’
also can’t wait to hear a recorded version of Crank Resolutions…..
Oh well, no point in retreading old ground. But it’s a shame your ears don’t work properly tho, you’ll really have to get that sorted at some point…
he really does TT
Oh dear, I’m a Grandad. Because I actually much prefer acoustic Mersault with instruments too. I actually prefer Dirt and the Root to Small Stretch of Land but, it’s close run thing.
You won’t like Crank Resolutions or New Ruin then, but they sound brilliant. But Sleet on the other hand…
This is the song that I sometimes have to skip when I’m playing the album in the car. I can’t NOT sing along to it and if not alone that makes for an awkward few moments.
It’s also the song that I can imagine most vividly Neil throwing out to an unruly crowd and having them be knocked right across the face by it, looking pretty sheepish by the fourth or fith phrase. Weapon of choice in those parts being, afterall, the bleating vocals of a young man bent on self destruction
Neil=bleating.
Quite right, Tart.
bbaaaa!!!
Fuck off. This is not your thread.
Well one does wonder if it’s all the rumors of sheep shagging come true… and then Mr. Bear chimes in, haha
Where are the Friday Fives? fucking HURRY UP.
seconded Toadet
Have to agree about the Queens Hall version and it would have been even better if all of those ignorant fucks had shut the fuck up and given it a chance.
An awful lot of them did, Drew. Just not enough to release a live video without a recording off the desk, which we didn’t have.
Roaring along to A Small Stretch Of Land at the Queen’s Hall as loudly as I could, and inadvertently enticing as a result my friends to do the same, was quite terrifically exciting. Especially when all the talking wankers next to us got quite confused by the group of men next to them singing loudly out of tune to a song they probably didn’t realise was even being played. And then, hopefully, they started to listen.