Character and Themes of The Songs
Owing to Stuart Murdoch's authorship and the accompaniment of the group Belle & Sebastian, the songs from the project God Help the Girl much resemble in their musical aspect the other work of Stuart Murdoch and Belle & Sebastian band. These similarities are all the more visible that some of the songs (Funny Little Frog, Act of the Apostle) were taken directly from the band's repertory and were performed earlier by Murdoch himself. In the project God Help the Girl, however, the band limited itself to the accompaniment, the main roles are played by the vocalist – Catherine Ireton and others; which means that the released singles and albums cannot be regarded, strictly speaking, as part of the output of Belle & Sebastian.
The invitation of female vocalists to take part in the project resulted from the subject matter of the songs and the planned film: their main character is a girl named Eve (who is to be played by Catherine Ireton), who dropped out of college (where she was not a very good student), starts work, but wants to change her life – she would like to become a singer or a songwriter. She also has many love and other personal problems – she has just absconded from the psychiatric ward. The problems, however, do not look dramatic in the songs in the form as they were written by Murdoch and are performed by the vocalists. Most of the pieces are cheerful in tone, with elements of irony and self-irony; even the more reflective songs, like Come Monday Night, have a cheerful and catchy tune. In the musical aspect, God Help the Girl is a reference to, or even pastiche of British girl bands performing in the 1960s, with a rich orchestral arrangement.
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