[Indie Band] Belle and Sebastian Frontman: "Living with ME makes me feel like a non person "

[frozenborderline]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...rliament-scotland-msps-holyrood-b2177301.html

He's also an OMF ambassador. He's one of one of most prominent famous people with our illness. Albeit more mild than a lot of us bedridden folks. But apparently early on he went thru periods like that and it influenced a lot of his music about frailty and sickliness .

Not as explicitly about ME although things like the early "get me away from here I'm dying" really sound like a wispy frail chronic illness patient. Actually a lot of the early stuff sounds like that but that song in particular has lyrics that fit that idea. But later in nobody's empire , he sort of "came out" and made a song so explicitly about this marginalized chronic illness and his history with it. It's very beautiful indie pop and I recommend people check it out.

He could be a good spokesperson for this disease. Probably a lot of Belle and sebastian fans don't know this about him.

 

[Zebra]

@frozenborderline

I've been a Belle & Sebastian fan since their first few albums, and I had no idea that one of the band members had ME/CFS!!! Thank you for sharing this article.

It's difficult to imagine someone with ME/CFS being able to go on world-wide tours to promote each album, but I don't know anything about the origin of his illness, what treatments he's had, etc. Maybe in the near future I'll poke around the Internet looking for more info.

I do appreciate that he is not "hiding" his ME/CFS from the public and is actively advocating for the ME/CFS community. Good on him!

 

[hapl808]

It's difficult to imagine someone with ME/CFS being able to go on world-wide tours to promote each album, but I don't know anything about the origin of his illness, what treatments he's had, etc. Maybe in the near future I'll poke around the Internet looking for more info.

I could have (and did) do a lot when I was more 'mild', even though we know that mild can still be somewhat debilitating. I felt sick all the time, but traveled constantly for work nonetheless. Just every day felt like a PEM episode (which just felt like constant exhaustion back then, as I never gave myself enough time to truly recover).

 

[Zebra]

Good point @hapl808. I did a lot more the first 2 to 3 years of my illness as well.

Also, I found an article from CNN that goes into more detail about Stuart's illness journey, including origin, remission, and how he's doing now.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/05/heal...och-belle-sebastian-turning-points/index.html

I will be listening to my Belle & Sebastian albums with an ear toward ME/CFS inspired lyrics. Wow!

 

[sometexan84]

Holy crap, I love Belle and Sebastian, and I had no idea! Thx for sharing

 

[sometexan84]

I will be listening to my Belle & Sebastian albums with an ear toward ME/CFS inspired lyrics. Wow!

Same

 

[Gingergrrl]

He is an OMF Ambassador since 2018 and there were a few threads about it back then. I like their music, too

https://forums.phoenixrising.me/thr...doch-from-the-band-belle-and-sebastian.61453/

 

[Artemisia]

I've been listening to their early stuff lately and looked up some info on Stuart Murdoch's illness. It sounds like he was more ill before starting the band, then he improved enough to start B & S. He was not always public with the illness, not even fully explaining it to the bandmates.

I wonder how he improved initially.

I saw B&S at an outdoor venue in about 1999. And at the end, he actually invited everyone at the concert to some house party nearby lol. It wasn't a huge city but still... there were a decent number of people in the audience. I went to a lot of shows back then, and I never heard a musician invite an entire audience to hang out with the band. I didn't have ME then, but I still got the feeling he was kind of carried away in the moment and not thinking clearly. Maybe he was crashing. I get like that when I "suppress PEM" to function.

It's easy to hear the ME influence in the early song lyrics. And then read normies' interpretations that miss the mark haha. For once I understand something in pop culture healthy people don't.

Does anyone know how he initially improved? I also read something about some faith healing, some religious woman laid hands on him...

He said this in the last 5-10 years, sorry can't remember where I saw this.

"When my band started and I started writing music and I got energy and my group came together, there was no point in talking to non-ME people about ME. It's so exhausting to try and explain what you're doing....At some point in the day you just have to disappear...It seems rude, but you just have to do it...I didn't mean to make it secret, it was just easier...

"[The past couple years, including when my son was born] it's been a cycle of virus and post-virus ever since...That's the thing about the show, you know. It's a great life...It can work great, but when I get sick, it just turns into the worse, because on top of the actual being away from home and just feeling so miserable, you have to do the show. They really will prop you up in front of a microphone, because so many people rely on you. You just can't afford not to...

ME people are marginalized...I was a second-class citizen. I, sometimes still feel like a second-class citizen, certainty when in Britain...It was easier to put the metaphor of other [marginalized groups into the songs] because ME is almost too difficult to talk about. Or it's not dramatic enough or something.