GUNS N ROSES – “My Michelle”
BELLE AND SEBASTIAN – “Expectations”
Axl’s belle’s some junkie latchkey kid he’s looking at (and yearning for, even if the lyrics don’t go that explicit), and Belle’s belle’s some rote Scots misfit fantasy chick, but riffs and location aside these songs are the same: pedestal-proferring idealisation which can only end in heartbreak. The listener meanwhile can’t directly sympathise with either the Gunners or the Sebs: these portraits are too specific, after all. (Axl overeggs the pudding rather by telling you how true his song is, but that amps the drama too). What the listener can do is imagine the type of girl who’d be punching or strumming along to these songs, and even on those nonmusical grounds it’s too damn close to call.