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Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant
 
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Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant [CD]

Belle & Sebastian Audio CD
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
Price: £7.79 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
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Frequently Bought Together

Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant + The Boy with the Arab Strap + If You're Feeling Sinister
Price For All Three: £21.47

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  • The Boy with the Arab Strap £6.29

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Product details

  • Audio CD (18 Mar 2009)
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Format: CD
  • Label: Jeepster Recordings Limited
  • ASIN: B00004TKWW
  • Other Editions: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  Mini-Disc  |  MP3 Download
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,562 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s

Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or view the MP3 Album.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Samples
Song Title Time Price
Listen  1. I Fought in a War 4:09£0.89
Listen  2. The Model 4:00£0.89
Listen  3. Beyond the Sunrise 4:09£0.89
Listen  4. Waiting for the Moon to Rise 3:13£0.89
Listen  5. Don't Leave the Light On, Baby 4:41£0.89
Listen  6. The Wrong Girl 3:22£0.89
Listen  7. The Chalet Lines 2:33£0.89
Listen  8. Nice Day for a Sulk 2:34£0.89
Listen  9. Women's Realm 4:35£0.89
Listen10. Family Tree 4:04£0.89
Listen11. There's Too Much Love 3:26£0.89


Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

A cheerful pluck at the heartstrings, Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant--Belle And Sebastian's fourth studio album--finds Scotland's finest twee-pop ensemble in playful mood. While previous album The Boy With The Arab Strap was characterised by hushed operatic drama, Fold Your Hands Child... skips and romps like an unruly infant--a far less focused piece, but endearing nonetheless. Stuart Murdoch is, as ever, the heart and soul of Belle & Sebastian, and it's his contributions that really shine--the sprightly "Woman's Realm" effortlessly taking centre stage. On "Beyond The Sunrise", Stevie Jackson hasn't quite grown into his Leonard Cohen baritone, and on "Family Tree", Isobel Campbell's lyrics are cloyingly twee: "I'm stuck in a cage / With a bottle of rage / And a family like the Mafia." But forgive them their follies--on Fold Your Hands Child..., these shy indie waifs make music that speaks volumes. And that's enough. --Louis Pattison

Product Description

Ambitious 2000 album from the Scottish pop ensemble! Includes "The Wrong Girl" and "I Fought In A War".

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Vinyl
Pet Sounds clones are a dime a dozen. Every month someone, somewhere, claims unearned kudos for the latest indie fad by comparing it with the Beach Boys' 1966 masterwork. In the case of Fold Your Hands Child, however, there really is no other precedent. On the evidence of their 3 earlier efforts, Belle & Sebastian seem incapable of writing a bad tune, but here they've transcended even those illustrious early works: 11 perfectly cut pop gems, as graceful and exacting as Brian Wilson used to produce.

Comparisons will inevitably be made with the album's predecessor, The Boy With the Arab Strap. One of those songs in particular points to the new direction, 'Dirty Dream Number 2', the exquisite soul pastiche. Sarah Martin's violin works similar wonders here on 'The Model', 'Don't Leave the Light On Baby', 'Women's Realm' and 'There's Too Much Love', the sweetest string sounds imaginable, soaring and diving, wringing every nuance of heartbreak from the accompanying lyric. The same soulful vivacity infuses the rest of the album - call it, then, 'Dirty Dream Numbers 3 to 13'.

'I Fought In a War' begins like an ancient folk hymn, then carries its elegiac tone into a contemporary pop setting. The harpsichord, another new feature, seems custom-built for the B&S musical blueprint. It adds extra fervour to 'Waiting for the Moon to Rise' and propels 'The Model', the latter a classic Stuart Murdoch tale of emotional confusion, using painting as a metaphor for a dysfunctional relationship. In stark contrast is the concentrated, hesitant 'Beyond the Sunrise', which demonstrates how impeccably arranged the sound has become. Harking back to the Lee Hazlewood-Nancy Sinatra duets of the sixties, it features male and female vocal parts, choir-like backing, startlingly audible fretwork (you can hear the fingers working), church bells, and backwards guitar - all of it used sparingly, for embellishment. Understatement is the keyword in the Belle & Sebastian glossary.

It's a relief to know that someone has finally got around to following up the Smiths' 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now'. The song, 'Nice Day for a Sulk', hitches a jaunty, lilting rhythm to an ethereal and uplifting vocal melody. Even the soul turn itself takes a new turn, on 'Don't Leave the Light On Baby'. The singer slips between cautious regret and bitter resignation, over a haunting and soulful keyboards-and-strings refrain (if you're feeling sinister). More pointed is 'The Chalet Lines', a first-person retelling of a girl's rape, sung by Murdoch. Yet this apparently straightforward and spartan lament contains its own subtleties. Even as the sharp colloquialisms make the incident seem more harrowing, the sense of helplessness and despair cannot extinguish a spark of defiance.

The next single, 'The Wrong Girl', telegraphs the essence of the B&S sound: a melody that you've heard a hundred times before, sounding like you're hearing it for the first time, every time. And then before it's barely begun, you're ensnared in that strange, magical, unfathomable mood they seem to conjure up at will. Such pristine pop purity is rarely achieved on a single, let alone a whole album.

Can a better one possibly come out this year?

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Audio CD
The only bad words I can say about this record are "Nice day for a sulk", but I suppose they needed something light and easy-going after the tragic, harrowing "Chalet lines". "I fought in a war" is my favourite B&S track ever, I only wish they had written it earlier. It begins with simple vocals over a barely-heard accousic guitar, then builds via a gorgeous guitar line to a sublime, trumpet lead instrumental. The jazzy, "There's too much love" is brilliant as well, "Beyond the sunrise" and "Don't leave the light on baby" are less accessible but very good all the same. I can't say whether it's better or worse than their last album, because they're very much different records. This is just a peach of an album.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Vinyl
The sleeve notes to this album highlight the youthful ideals of Glasgow hipsters being put to the test "when they come up against the commercial world and the awakening activity of everyday life". The conflict between ideals and reality, a recurrent theme in earlier Belle and Sebastian releases, is central to "Fold your hands child, you walk like a peasant." In 'Women's Realm', an artfully arranged Murdoch and Campbell duet, Murdoch sings "It would take a left wing Robin Hood to pay for school/Your Dad's a boozer and you keep him alive." The legendary figure is given a political label and put in a context of modern day poverty and alcoholism far from the romance of Nottingham Forest. And of course, no such hero really exists. In 'Beyond The Sunrise', a slow-paced and almost Biblical Jackson and Campbell duet, the character Joseph's dreams are broken, and he dismisses an invitation to taste hope in a temptress's skin and "faith with the dawn" as a liquor-induced dream. The song, on the first few listens, sounds out of place, gruff and laborious, and it takes several listens to appreciate its originality and effectiveness at evoking a hazy, archaic atmosphere. The singer in 'Don't Leave The Light On Baby' is stuck in a failing relationship, resigned to bloody stupid days and conceding that it's "best to go down without a fight" He is overawed when a friend comes back from abroad rich. Such opportunities do not seem to be open to him. And yet he can find simple pleasure in watching a sunset. Most poignantly, Murdoch's character in the opening track 'I Fought In A War' thinks of a love back home while he has to endure "a corpse that just fell into me, with the bullets flying round". He imagines her "making shells back home for a steady man to wear/Round his neck", a devastating image - while seashells may make a pretty necklace, the song's context makes it impossible to avoid the sense of "shells" as explosive shells, and a feeling that his contemplation of his lover with another man is as destructive for the narrator as the battle he is in the middle of. 'The Chalet Lines', following the pop brilliance of 'The Wrong Girl' (and even this uplifting song is about the singer not finding his darling except in the back of his mind, and indeed having the wrong dream on his mind), is stark and disturbing. With minimal musical accompaniment, Murdoch sings from the point of view of a rape victim. The fact that lines such as "I missed my time, I don't think I could stand/To take the test" are sung by a man, even a man with such a gentle voice, makes them all the more terrifying. Whether or not he succeeds in expressing the thoughts of a rape victim can only be known by those who have suffered that atrocity, but the is as sensitive and understatedly tragic as anything Belle and Sebastian have done before: "Her face was just a smear on the pane". Much of the album is melancholic in tone, especially the whimsical 'Waiting For The Moon To Rise', Sarah Martin's first song for the band. However, there is also a tone of suppressed aggression. Murdoch proclaims himself a fraud in 'The Model' and positively wants to cause offence in the absolutely outstanding closing track, 'There's Too Much Love'. He imagines coming to blows and ending face down on the ground. It also takes a lot of boldness to begin a song "I don't care whether you hear this", as he does 'Women's Realm'. However, he also insists on his honesty in expressing his emotions, and the album's closing lines "I'm brutal, honest and afraid of you" conclude it magnificently. The upbeat orchestrial finale detracts from the direct confessional nature of 'There's Too Much Love', and indeed the whole album.

It's not perfect. 'Nice Day For A Sulk' is too slight, and the lyrics to 'Family Tree' too sixth-form, but these are still perfectly listenable. In general, the songs are varied, yet unified, and incredibly addictive. Musically and lyrically, Belle and Sebastian are the most accomplished band around.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Just Superb
I have all theoir other records but only just got around to picking this one up and - wow....
The sleeve notes highlight the youthful ideals of these Glaswegians being put to... Read more
Published on 12 Dec 2008 by Dream Baby
sublime
this is the first belle and seb album i listened to, and upon relistening, i realised just how unique they are. Read more
Published on 23 Dec 2005 by "mattomatto"
Great
Paul Sheehan is completely right (see below). This is a superb album, which emulates the mid sixties West Coast sound brilliantly. Read more
Published on 22 Jan 2004 by Chandler
peerless
Probably the most charming band I can think of reach a certain level of pop perfection on this release. Read more
Published on 26 Oct 2003 by Mr. Nicholas Davies
Hmm....not sure about this one!
Don't get me wrong, I like Belle and Sebastian a lot, I just feel that this album does not compare very well to their earlier ones. Read more
Published on 30 July 2003 by "queenofteacakes"
Intoxicating
Fold your hands... Probably one of the strangest title ever used is just an equisite record. Being a big fan of B&S, I have had underated this album like many others, feeling that... Read more
Published on 26 Mar 2003 by Edouard Bouffenie
MORE CLEVER THAN HEARSAY!!!!!!
FROM START TO FINISH THE ALBUM DELIVERS TRULY AMAZING SONGS FROM 'THE MODEL' TO 'WAITING FOR THE MOON TO RISE' TO 'THE WRONG GIRL' AND THE FINAL TRACK 'THERES TOO MUCH LOVE' IT... Read more
Published on 3 May 2001 by "grafikassasin"
Swirlingly seductive...
Pop music has always more of a capitalistic business, than the fruit of a dedicated devotion. With this album Belle And Sebastian have once again proved that pop can be not only... Read more
Published on 28 Dec 2000 by dan.rees@ntlworld.com
Very Average by their high standards.
I have been a lover of B&S since If youre feeling sinister was released and have bought everything by them I could since get my hands on, I have to say i am very dissapointed... Read more
Published on 14 Dec 2000
superb cd
A brilliant album with clever thoughtful lyrics. My favourite track has got to be 'I fought in a war', closely followed by 'waiting for the moon to rise'. Read more
Published on 10 Nov 2000 by Mr. T. D. Fay
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