{"id":1605,"date":"2019-04-22T10:48:54","date_gmt":"2019-04-22T09:48:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cookywook.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1605"},"modified":"2019-04-23T14:54:44","modified_gmt":"2019-04-23T13:54:44","slug":"elegiac-stanzas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cookywook.co.uk\/blog\/elegiac-stanzas\/","title":{"rendered":"Elegiac Stanzas: Literary references in British Sea Power\u2019s early discography"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019m a big fan of the local library<\/em>
I just read a book<\/em>
But that\u2019s another story<\/em>
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So declares Yan Wilkinson in Who\u2019s In Control<\/em><\/a>, the first song on British Sea Power\u2019s fourth album, Valhalla Dancehall<\/a>. And as the very name of that album suggests, British Sea Power are a band more than comfortable with a literary reference. In fact, from just classical mythology alone they’ve drawn upon Zeus<\/a>, Hercules, and the Trojan War. Listening to British Sea Power, isn\u2019t just listening to music, it\u2019s an education in the arts. Like reading a truly great book, it\u2019s fun on its own, but when you dig into what it\u2019s drawing on, you get something truly meaningful.
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One of the reasons I love BSP, and maybe the reason they get a bit overlooked, is that they pick unusual things to sing about. When most bands are singing about love and relationships, BSP have sung about the history of artificial illumination<\/a>, the smallest church in Sussex<\/a>, and the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich<\/a>. You know, standard fare. And throughout these explorations, they pepper eclectic references. And if GCSE English taught me anything it\u2019s that lots of references = very good. Or at least, it makes the songs richer than your standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus-chorus affair.
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Which brings us to this. For years I\u2019ve wondered about collecting the references I\u2019d unearthed. And finally, I\u2019ve actually got round to doing it. I\u2019m focussing on the first album – The Decline of British Sea Power<\/em><\/a> – mostly because I know it best, but also because I think it has the highest density of these references. And I\u2019m grateful to various contributors across the internet for helping me to fill in the blanks on some of this, especially the folks at SongMeanings.net, the Salty Water<\/a> BSP fan site, and the stark-raving mad bunch on the BSP forum<\/a>.
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TDOBSP is also a masterpiece of an album from start to finish, musically as well as lyrically. It\u2019s broadly about…. remembrance?  At least, that\u2019s my interpretation. As the quote on the front of the album says (from Thornton Wilder\u2019s The Bridge of San Luis Rey<\/em>): \u201cWe ourselves may be loved only for a brief time\u2026 Even so, that will suffice\u2026 There is a land for the living and a land for the dead.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The album cover of The Decline of British Sea Power<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Angular guitar riffs meet Russian literature<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The album opens with forty two seconds of gregorian chanting<\/a>. Because why not. But after that, the first line – spoken, not sung – is:  \u201cOh Fyodor you are the most attractive man<\/em>\u201d. Oh hello, Russian author FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY, on this nondescript 2003 indie rock release, what are you doing here? The song is Apologies to Insect Life<\/a>, and the song supposedly draws inspiration from Dostoyevksy\u2019s Notes from Underground<\/em> – but I don\u2019t know enough about to get the specific references.
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It\u2019s a Pixies-inspired clangy anthem that builds with frenetic energy that spills over to the next song Favours in the Beetroot Fields<\/a>, supposedly an oblique reference to the dispensation Field Marshall Montgomery gave his troops to seek \u2018favours\u2019 while stationed out on the front.
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BSP & Betjeman<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The title of Favours in the Beetroot Fields<\/em> partially echoes The Licorice Fields at Pontefract<\/em>, by former poet laureate John Betjeman. Is it a deliberate reference? Possibly not. But we know it\u2019s at least knocking around in the BSP subconscious from their appearance in the BBC documentary Betjeman & Me, <\/em>in which they perform a reading of Pontefract<\/em> and discuss Betjeman\u2019s penchant for larger ladies.
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