Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Dog On Wheels
2. The State I Am In
3. String Bean Jean
4. Belle and Sebastian
5. Lazy Line Painter Jane
6. You Made Me Forget My Dreams
7. A Century Of Elvis
8. Photo Jenny
9. A Century Of Fakers
10. Le Pastie De La Bourgeoisie
11. Beautiful
12. Put The Book Back On The Shelf

Disc 2:

1. This Is Just A Modern Rock Song
2. I Know Where The Summer Goes
3. The Gate
4. Slow Graffiti
5. Legal Man
6. Judy Is A Dickslap
7. Winter Wooskie
8. Jonathan David
9. Take Your Carriage Clock And Shove It
10. The Loneliness Of The Middle Distance Runner
11. I'm Waking Up To Us
12. I Love My Car
13. Marx & Engels

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #81765 in Music
• Released on: 2005-05-23
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Explicit Lyrics, Limited Edition

Amazon.co.uk Review
Belle & Sebastian released seven EPs and singles with Jeepster at the beginning of their career. None of these tracks ever since appeared on a B&S album, so Push Barman To Open Old Wounds, which collects all 25 cuts together over two discs, is a massive boon for fans who missed them the first time around. But these songs are not just for the obsessive completist. This collection gathers together some of band's finest recordings to date - certainly some of their most poetic, delicate and humorous. Classic songs like "Dog On Wheels", "The State I Am In", "Lazy Line Painter Jane", "String Bean Jean" and their breakthrough classic "This Is Just A Modern Rock Song" sound as fresh now as they did then, and reveal a group able to knit together casual backdrops of bluegrass, country & western and barbershop quartets with engaging lyrics, a strangely rural flair and heaps of understated imagination. A quietly formidable anthology, this is a must for fans and newcomers alike.

Album Description
A chronological double CD collection of all 25 songs from Belle and Sebastian’s seven Jeepster EP and single releases compiled on an album for the first time. The album is released in a hardback case bound CD sleeve with a deluxe booklet. The sleeve features the original artwork from the individual EP releases. The sleeve image will aim to explain the origins of the album’s title.

The songs included here date back to the early days of the band’s career in 1997 when they released 3 four track EPs ("Dog On Wheels", "Lazy Line Painter Jane" and "3..6..9 Seconds of Light") to bridge the time between the release of their albums If You’re Feeling Sinister (1996) and The Boy With The Arab Strap (1998). Also included is their most successful single "Legal Man". The set concludes with the band’s last Jeepster single release "I’m Waking up To Us".

None of these songs, which are virtually all remastered for this collection, have ever featured on Belle & Sebastian’s albums and, as individual catalogue singles become increasingly difficult to track down.

CD Description
'Push Barman To Open Old Wounds' is a compilation of Scottish alt-popsters Belle And Sebastian's seven EP's that they made whilst at Jeepster Records. With their own individual take on the music of The Smiths and The Go-Betweens, Belle AndSebastian have garnered an impressively large and very committed fanbase, and this compilation will appeal to both old and new fans alike. Includes the singles 'Legal Man' and 'I'm Waking Up To Us'.

Customer Reviews

Push BUY NOW to Open Your Heart!
If you are unfamiliar with the sound of Belle and Sebastian and you are curious enough to be reading this humble review, then may I take it upon myself to suggest that this collection could serve as a very worthy introduction to the band! It gathers tracks from all their EP releases on the Jeepster label, and is absolutely chock-full of wonderful, vital music.

Disc 1 features the 12 tunes from their first 3 fantastic EPs and it is difficult to spot a duff one! There is "Dog on Wheels" with its infectious minor-key hushed vocal melody, choppy acoustic guitars and a bold mariachi trumpet break. "String Bean Jean" is perfectly simple jangly guitar pop with understated vocal harmonies. "Lazy Line Painter Jane" is a remarkable GET-OUT-OF-BED tune with echoing, Spector-esque production, boy/girl vocal interplay and gigantic flurries of hammond organ. "Beautiful"(my personal fave!) is just that: a gorgeous downtempo baroque folk masterpiece, sung plaintively by Stuart Murdoch. The trumpet solo here (underpinned by shimmering strings and reverb guitar) always moves me deeply. BEAUTIFUL indeed.

Disc 2 features all the cuts from their next 4 EP's and as such is positively RIDDLED with diverse charms. "Modern Rock Song" is a 3 chord slow burner, building on a base of acoustic guitar, adding electric, strings and brass until it crescendos with almighty vocal harmonies from Murdoch and Stevie Jackson. BLINDING. "Slow Graffiti" is another winning ballad which could almost be categorised as "indie soul". "Jonathan David" is the band doing what they do best - wrapping an intricate vocal line around a spiralling piano groove. "Marx and Engels" is almost bafflingly good - a steady beat, a gorgeous descending piano riff, twinkling organ and a predictably splendid whispered vocal from Murdoch. Musical ambrosia, to be sure.

Listening to this compilation now, it is easy to see why B+S have captured many people's imagination over the years. Many of their fans have developed unshakable obsessions with the band! Their spellbinding music and affable personalities have ensured them a devotional fanbase. For myself, on a personal level, I have often found that listening to their music has resulted in lifting my spirits and eradicating my frequent melancholy moods.

As I said at the opening of this review, if you are new to B+S, this collection is a great place to start. Be warned, however: The likelihood is that you will subsequently shell out on all of their albums and ultimately not want to listen to much else!

Belle and Sebastien at the peak of their powers
Oh, what a joy this will be for people who have not had the good fortune to come across these EPs when originally released.

Many of Belle and Sebastien's best tracks were laid as singles rather than on their albums, and these EPs reveal a much broader sweep to their music than their albums do.

There's a clutch of classics here - the Wurlitzer driven duet Lazy Line Painter Jane, the winsome and beautiful You Made Me Forget My Dreams, the Spector-esque Slow Graffiti... the list goes on and on. This is Just a Modern Rock Song is a wonderful, fey slow-burner of a song, A Century of Fakers and Le Pastie de la Bourgeoisie rattle along like few B&S songs do anywhere, Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It is a wonderful mini-drama of a country song.

More than any other B&S long-player, this one should be in everybody's collection. It is close to pop-perfection and explains to the doubters (if explanation were really necessary) why B&S have been so lauded by so many of us over the last 10 years.

24 carat class
In comparison to other 5 star album, I have to agree with the previous reviewer - we are in solid 6 STAR TERRITORY HERE. For a band that still do not receive the recognition they so clearly deserve, the level of musicianship is stunning. This is grown up music with grown up subject matter. The type of songs that, in 15 years time, will have young song-writers falling over themselves to site as influences.

My favourites must be "The State I Am In" - (recently discovered that this is the demo version), "Lazy Line Painter Jane", "The Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner" and "I Know Where The Summer Goes".

And the packaging is cool, too - hard back book style.

Go on, do yourself a favour. Forget the Coldplay album, Oasis' next re-run or even Jack and Meg - (you can get them later, Ed.). Treat yourself to some 24 carat class and discover your new favourite song.