felt - "the world is as soft as lace" (from the splendour of fear lp, available for purchase here.)

in brief : "fuck the smiths."

it's getting late and i've gotten tired, so my plan right now is to let stuart murdoch do most of the heavy lifting--but we'll see. anyway, in the liners to dear catastrophe waitress, stu writes:

i can't believe this band ever existed. they're so perfect. fuck the smiths, fuck orange juice, felt. FELT, FELT!! ... larkin, cohen, lawrence and moz. the rest of you boys can leave your quills in your tunics.

lawrence is, well, lawrence, surname unknown (though i've heard hayward), the leader of felt. my guess is that he didn't dig punk all that much, but, like so much about lawrence, that can merely be a guess since little is known about the man, apart from his appreciation of patti smith and television. going w/ the whole antipunk thing, i would be that he'd rate adventure higher than marquee moon, as "the world is as soft as lace"--quoted by stu in "i don't love anyone"--aspires toward the ballads found on the former. lawrence is himself less reedy than verlaine (the singer), and would probably be the english steve wynn (the singer) if it didn't seem like he thought the 60's were bunk too. "primitive painters" w/ liz fraser would be the obvious selection, but posting it would be like posting "come on eileen" to try to get someone into dexys: it's not that it isn't a great song; it's not that it isn't necessarily unrepresentative; it's just something of a terminal point.

"the world is as soft as lace," on the other hand, is an excellent entry point into the world of felt. the guitars on the song aspire from the v. start, ascending upwards, striking the loveliest chord. the listener is hooked from the opening, hoping to hear that gorgeous figure again--but lawrence and felt mk. i co-conspirator maurice deebank are stingy; the message may be that the world is as soft as lace, but no one is allowed too much heaven. the track is not a terminal point, then, but a midpoint, hovering somewhere between heaven and hell, between lace and felt, between bob dylan in nashville and jimmy page in excelsis. "if i knew all about this world," lawrence sings, "do you think i'd stay here? that's absurd / i'd be the brightest star you heard / we'd be the softest lace on earth." that's a lullaby w/ lyrics as troubling as "rockabye baby," but as soothing as the memory of your mother singing its words.

good night.