Nobody's Empire
"Nobody's Empire" is a song by Scottish indie pop group Belle and Sebastian. The song deals with leader singer Stuart Murdoch's experience with myalgic encephalomyelitis.[1] The song appears on Belle and Sebastian's 2015 album Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance; it is their ninth studio album.[1]
Background[edit | edit source]
Speaking to The Guardian, Murdoch described writing the song:
“There’s a year of my life bottled into every line...When I wrote it I was fighting the same demons. I wrote the song to cheer myself up. I wanted to write my own ‘glorious’, in inverted commas, history. I want to walk out of this room and be a normal person. I want to go on tour with the band. All of this is a day-to-day battle so it was absolutely real for me, writing that song.”[1]
Lyrics[edit | edit source]
Lying on my bed, I was reading French
With the light too bright for my senses
From this hiding place life was way too much
It was loud and rough round the edges
So I faced the wall when an old man called
Out of dreams that I would die there
But a sight unseen, you were pulling strings
You had a different idea
I was like a child, I was lying strong
And my father lifted me up there
Took me to a place where they checked my body
My soul was floating in thin-air
I clung to the bed and I clung to the past
I clung to the welcome darkness
But at the end of the night there's a green green light
The quiet before the madness
There was a girl that sang like the chime of a bell
And she put out her arm,
she touched me when I was in hell
When I was in hell
Someone sang a song and I sang along
Cause I knew the words from my childhood
Intellect ambition they fell away
And they locked me up for my own good
But I didn't mind, cause the silence was kind
It spoke to me in whispers
There was the sound of the wind and the cold cold dawn
And the quiet hum of business
Let me dangle awhile in this waiting room
I don't need to go I don't need to know what you're doing
Know what you're doing
Lying on my side you were half awake
And your face was tired and crumpled
If I had a camera I'd snap you now
Cause there's beauty in every stumble
We are out of practice we're out of sight
On the edge of nobody's empire
And if we live by books and we live by hope
Does that make us targets for gunfire?
Now I look at you, you're a mother of two
You're a quiet revolution
Marching with the crowd, singing dirty and loud
For the people's emancipation
Did I do okay, did I pave the way?
Was I strong when you were wanting?
I was tied to the yoke with a decent bloke
Who was stern but never daunting
And he told me to push and he made me feel well
He told to me to leave that vision of hell to the dying
Oh to the dying
Reception[edit | edit source]
Reviewing "Nobody's Empire" at The Awl, writer Alex Balk said,
"I have been listening to this first track from the new Belle and Sebastian album...over and over again trying to figure out what is so good about it and I am still not sure. It shouldn’t work: The verses never resolve into a chorus, leaving the listener in a state of vague dissatisfaction, and yet the crescendo at the end is somehow so uplifting that it almost makes you smile...I have to say I like it. I like it a lot. And I am not a person who has a lot of like left, so there must be something to it."[2]
See also[edit | edit source]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lynskey, Dorian (December 11, 2014). "Belle & Sebastian: 'I want to be in Abba but we're probably more like the Grateful Dead'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved January 9, 2019.
- ↑ Balk, Alex. "Belle and Sebastian, "Nobody's Empire"". The Awl. Retrieved January 9, 2019.
External links[edit | edit source]
- "Nobody's Empire" on YouTube
