The State I Am In

In the song “The State I am in,” the music group Belle and Sebastian sing of a struggle against a nihilistic attitude towards the concept of love and commitment. Lead singer Stuart Murdoch uses a poppy melody and sardonic lyrics to paint a picture of someone attempting, unsuccessfully, to understand the values and institutions that surround love.

  The first verse of the song Stuart sings of a situation where his brother confesses he is gay on the day of his sisters wedding. Stuart notes that this announcement “takes the heat off me for awhile.” This “heat” he is speaking of is the pressure his family puts on him to find love and settle down. The relief he feels is at the expense of his brother. This leads to the unfortunate idea that while his family is celebrating love at his sisters wedding they are also being judgmental over his brothers love with a “sailor friend.”

  The second verse he sings of his blasé attitude towards the institution of marriage when he tells of marring a young girl to save her from being deported. While this act may seem kind, the second line eludes that she falls in love with him, and this moves him to kick the crutches from his crippled friend. This is an example of the struggle he carries with wanting to be a caring person and his inability to be the kind of person who can maintain friendships.

  The third verse Stuart mentions the relationship he has with a priest that has the ability to remember every confession he has ever made and has even written a book about them. This line in the  song signifies that the priest knows him better than anyone else and adds meaning to the pregnant pause that the priest gives after he gives himself to god. The pregnant pause is indicative of the priest thinking he was not capable of the love or the commitment necessary to give himself to god. Stuart is also mentioning here yet another institution he is struggling to understand and fully participate in. This is evident in the fourth verse  when he sings “I gave myself to sin, I gave myself to providence, and I've been there and back again.”

  In the fifth verse the conflict leads to a sense of desperation when he calls on a love to condescend to help him. He believes he is stupid and blind for not truly understanding what it takes to commit to an ideal. He begs to be led “to a living end,” and promises to to entertain his crippled friend as almost a bargain to a higher power. This bargain is yet another example of his inability to make a deeper connection with people as this promise is based on a superficial exchange of an act of kindness for a sense of enlightenment.

This is an absolutely beautiful song. This is what pop music should be.

I love this song. The line, "So I gave myself to god, There was a pregnant pause before he said ok" is just brilliant. I like the green card marriage reference, too.

I love the sparkly swell of strings that resonates right before the song picks up in the begining, it puts a smile on face everytime. My favorite song off Tigermilk, have yet to hear the Dog on Wheels version though.

The song title is supposed to be a title of a book and the lyrics are novelistic in their approach. Lots of characters and themes for a pop song. If pressed to encapsulate what it all means I would say that the song is about the tension people feel when they wrestle with dissappointing themselves, making mistakes, etc.. and the rather thankless moments when one knows they have done something good, honest or empathetic but will likely make further mistakes and/or continue to disappoint others/themselves.

Also, Stuart Murdoch suffered from chronic fatigue I believe. It's possible the characters here all reflect himself. He was in a sense "crippled" and ultimately saved himself, became a rock star and went on to write a bunch of stuff about hyperliterate kids wrestling with good and evil.

I see this song as describing a dream and how he interprets it. At the outset he says he is puzzled by the dream, but it made him think of being a child. To him, the story represents the cycle of his life over those years. His conclusion is that "I gave myself to sin. I gave myself to providence. And I'll be there and back again." The first verse alludes to being exposed to sinful behavior by his siblings, and then engaging in sinful behavior himself. All the while, the sinful behavior is performed in the context of good intentions: marriage, mutually beneficial relationships. "The State" he is in is being human. The dream is about being human: loving, caring, hurting, misunderstanding, abusing, hoping, idling -- falling. He knows he is fallen, and knows he has to reach out to God. The line, "there was a pregnant pause" is brilliant because it describes how he felt like, "God, please save me anyway. I promise to do my best."

Perhaps he asked early on, perhaps for the first time in 1975...and didn't feel like he got his answer until 1995. The "pregnant pause" gives the listener a humorous visual image of a sinner asking for salvation and God kinda staring him down until he responds. However, to him the "pregnant pause" represents the twenty years since he first thought as a child, "How can I <i>know</i> there's a God?"

Furthermore, I view this song as Stuart Murdoch's mission statement for Belle and Sebastian. He declares that humans are fallen, that he has chosen Providence, and had to do so more than once. In his lyrics he will describe human behavior on Earth as he sees it, but not as God wants it. He can't speak for God. Most of what he will write about will be of the Devil, but he must have you know from the outset he has chosen God. Hopefully this song has encouraged thousands of others to do the same.

And the better version is Dog On Wheels.

I generally "get" this song but am so confused about the "kicking crutches" part, and am hoping someone can explain.

I always interpreted the line about him being "moved to kick the crutches from my crippled friend" as sarcastic/self-loathing, as in, "oh, this young woman I married just to save from being deported actually loves me, how sweet, now I'm angry at myself for being so cold and I'm going to sink even lower by kicking my crippled friend's crutches over." Because I saw this as an act of cruelty, the following line ("she was not impressed") seemed, like many of Belle and Sebastian's lyrics, willfully sardonic/cutting. Because of COURSE no one, least of all his wife who is in love with him, would be "impressed" by someone knocking their cripple friend over--it's a tremendous understatement.

But then he says WHY "she" wasn't impressed, and it's not because he kicked the friend's crutches away, it's because he "cured HER on the sabbath." (So now we know his crippled friend is female, which means it's a man tripping and humiliating a defenseless woman--the story gets even darker). This confused me so much. How is he "curing" her by kicking the crutches away? Again, I figured this was more of that witty Murdoch self-loathing irony--"not only did I do such a bad thing to her, I did in on the Sabbath," and he adds insult to (literal) injury by calling this act "curing." Then I figured he was going to confession for hurting his friend, and he takes the bride along. OK, got it.

But then there's the line "when she saw the funny side.." The funny side...of what, basically? Him knocking his friend over by kicking over her crutches, like some insanely evil "America's Funniest Home Videos" clip? Like she's starting to share his cruel sense of humor? And so, through that dark bond, he then "introduces her to whiskey and gin" and they're both now immoral/degenerate?

This is how I interpreted it. For years. But it just didn't add up given how the rest of the song plays out, and how moral/remorseful his character seems later on.

So today I did some Google searching and realized the "cured" thing is a biblical reference--Jesus freed a woman of her handicap by fixing her broken legs and removing her crutches, but doing miracles on the Sabbath was forbidden by God. So now it seems that, despite the violent, cruel imagery of "kicking crutches," the narrator really WAS moved to do a GOOD thing, that is curing his friend, as Jesus did, of her handicap. But he's so deeply religious that he has to go to confession as if 1995 is somehow the olden days and you still can't do miracles on the Sabbath? OK, fine, but still not explained is what the "funny side" is that his child bride saw. What happened during the confession that made her laugh? And why does that then lead to him corrupting her with drink? (Or maybe it's not corruption at all, maybe they are just celebrating something together?)

Can someone explain? Thank you!

I cannot believe no one has commented on this song. This is one of my all time favortie B&S song. The meaning, to me atleast, is just how someone always seems to do something good but it's always turning around and bitting him in the butt. A great song through and through and a great way to start off an all-in-all good album.

Lyrics are slightly wrong, you missed the 'that' for 'the state that I am in' in the 3rd paragraph (stanza...whatever) and there's a 'Why don't you' before 'lead me to the living end'.

jesusaurous your point is (of course) only correct if you are talking about the version from Tigermilk. The lyrics are correct for the superior version from the Dog on Wheels EP.