The Stars of Track and Field

I agree that the girl's sexuality is in question, as is the nature of her promiscuity, but I don't agree that either of these are the focus of the song.

Think about the narrator...he (or she, but I think it's a he) attempts to present himself as somewhat neutral and without any emotional investment, ("a boy I never rated") but it's clear that he has a deep lust for this girl ("and feel the city air run past your body"). I think that everything that we learn about the girl's lifestyle ("kissing girls in English at the back of the stairs", "you always get your way") is just speculation on the part of the narrator.

I think this is a song about the paranoia that you feel when you long for someone you can't have. This narrator is someone who is not athletic and sees the beauty in athletes, but has become so infatuated with this girl that he is consumed by the idea that athletes are beautiful people. He wants her so badly, yet still questions his own sexuality (here "a boy I never rated" might have more meanings than one) that he reflects this upon his ideal of her.

It's a song about feeling sexually sidelined, and not knowing who or what to blame.

Who knows

This song's written from the perspective of some sort of journalist/track and field talent scout. He talks about a boy he "never rated" Then he talks about writing a piece about her now that she's made it.

I think it's ambiguous as to whether she's a lesbian or not. The third line, "They never know it," could refer to her being a lesbian or simply her being rather promiscuous/sexually deviant.

"She never needed anyone to get around the track But when she's on her back she had the knowledge to get her into college."

She's an accomplished track runner, but it seems she doesn't do well in her studies, so she uses sex to advance her academic career. Seems she probably uses it to advance her social standing on the track team as well.

I'm probably wrong but to me this song is about a girl who is really pretty and good at sport and so all the boys want her and she uses this to get her way but I think her biggest secret is that she is really a lesbian "Kissing girls in English, at the back of the stairs" No one knows she is a lesbian though so she keeps using boys to get her way "They never know it Because they never show it You always get your way" The middle bit kind of explains itself but I think when it says "But when she's on her back. She had the knowledge. To get her into college" I think it means that she slept her way to college and that she was good in bed not smart as in clever with books. I don't know I could be way off but that was just the first thing I thought of when I heard the song.

i'm pretty sure that the last words are "she had the knowledge to get her what she wanted" and is it "emptiness" in your training? i thought it was either worldliness or wilderness

What a beautiful melody this song has, like so many Stuart Murdoch (I'm guessing) compositions. And, of course, fantastic, intriguing, ambiguous lyrics.

I never read them until now (I always had it in my head that the 1st line was "Take a new coat every day to suit your affairs"), but looking at them now, and remembering my feelings of what the song initially meant to me, I see it as the narrator being perhaps once infatuated with a girl at school, who he then realises is not so worthwhile in pursuing, a sort of popular, "jock" type girl, who is very pretty, and is also a bit of a slag, or at least someone really driven, who knows what she wants and how to get it, someone who gets all the boys (and girls) to kiss her, but not the narrator, who seems quite thankful of this by the end of the song.

I just love the beautiful, comic lines, about "now he's throwing discus for Liverpool and Widnes", and "you only did it so that you could wear Terry underwear", and his beautiful, lilting voice.

My first introduction to the band, and I was hooked. Need to buy more albums now. Any recommendations?

it was released 1996 -__-

Wahey, the most proud I've ever been to come from Widnes was when I first heard this. wipes away tear sniff Gosh.

I think that this is a song about a high school girl who is very sexual. She kisses girls and has a following of boys. I think the word "liberated" refers to having sex with the other track team boys and she ended their virginity and they become looser and more relaxed and better atheletes. And even though she was a good track star, her sexual life is what was her obsession [mentioned in the second verse] and that liberated her as well, it is what she fed off of to make her the track star she was. And the line about college says she got the knowledge from being on her back, i.e. having sex, and this is what made her a great enough track star to get into college. I really think its about a very sexually active and sexually centered high school girl on the track team. Her "cults" and "obsessions" are all these sexual encounters that she needs to do well and she inadvertantly or purposefully liberates the boys on the team as well and so they too succeed. As always though, unless we hear from the band this is just my crazy guess.

When he goes up an octave to sing "The knowledge to get her into college," my heart friggin breaks. GREAT song.

You missed, "She never needed anyone to get around the track..." before "but when she's...", as well as the "get her what she wanted"