Day 1 (March 20): Belle and Sebastian - I Didn't See It Coming

Image result for belle and sebastian write about loveMake me dance, I want to surrender...
Confession. This is day one of this whole project thing, and you'd think I'd be bursting with ideas.  Nope. I have been song-blocked the entire day. Social isolation is not good for musical inspiration.

Instead of putting pressure on myself to Be Original, I'm trying to start simple. Rather than trying to capture my day perfectly in song, I'm picking one that's always, in some shape or form, rattling about the brain.

So, Belle and Sebastian. For me, they're childhood in a nutshell: a thousand half-remembered memories of sitting in cars and letting Mum and Dad's iPod classic roll. I found my way back to them about a year ago, and was staggered by just how warm and familiar their music felt. Apparently a large, dormant part of my brain was just playing Belle and Sebastian radio on a loop, waiting to be discovered again.

And central to that is 'I Didn't See It Coming', track one of their 2010 album, Write About Love. I don't actually know why this one is so central in The Brain, honestly. This isn't their most popular album by a long shot, and this is realistically not their best song. But it's just... so lovely. Perfect harmonies, a bouncy and summery underlying tune, and a classic "does it mean anything or is it just difficultly worded?" hook.

It belongs on a July walk through a park glistening with sunshine, but a freezing March night in borderline quarantine works just fine for it too.

Tomorrow: I don't know. This is how this is going to work. Just improvisation and hope.

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