Cocteau Twins' Blue Bell Knoll

by Chris Tapley

In this exploration of Cocteau Twins' quintessential album, Chris Tapley traces lines in all directions from Blue Bell Knoll to paint a revealing portrait of the enigmatic trio and their career-long struggles with self-doubt, stubborn principles, and pure experimentation.

Throughout their career, Cocteau Twins sought to escape definition. Lyrics were a closely guarded secret, their transcendent recordings sounded completely unique, and they were notoriously tightlipped during interviews. The music, they said, should speak for itself. Only nobody could agree on what the music said.

Released in 1988, their fifth full-length album, Blue Bell Knoll, is the pinnacle of Cocteau Twins' legendary ambiguity. The first album recorded entirely in their own studio, the dense dreamlike songs capture the band as they refined the key elements of their iconic sound while testing the limits of language and the mixing desk.

This exploration of Blue Bell Knoll traces lines in all directions to paint a revealing portrait of the enigmatic trio and their careerlong struggles with self-doubt, stubborn principles, and pure experimentation. From lyrics and production to artwork and interviews, everything about this influential, one-of-a-kind band stokes contradictions and uncertainty, and raises the can anyone ever really define what a song means?

Genres: Music

152 pages, Paperback

Published May 29, 2025

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s nice that we have a little book about the wonderful Cocteau Twins and Chris Tapley’s heart is in the right place and he inspired me to listen to all of the Cocteaus’ albums in order but boy oh boy he makes heavy weather out of it all. He is obsessed with the words of the songs. Well, there really aren’t any words on this album, there are beautiful melodious vocal sounds by Elizabeth Fraser which she drapes over all these vast crashing oceanic guitar constructions – but Chris Tapley worries constantly about what they mean or he worries about other people worrying about what they mean as if he’s never heard of anything being abstract or has ever heard anything sung in a language he has no knowledge of. Anyway, entire genres, like death metal, completely abandon the idea of understandable lyrics. It’s possible some listeners would be put off by it, and others might be appalled by the icky babytalk of the song titles –

The Itchy Glowbo Blow
Suckling the Mender
Spooning Good Singing Gum
Ella Megalast Burls Forever

But I advise overlooking such minor considerations. It’s a great album.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who’s not just a devoted fan, but someone who has worked with them and their fan community for over 30 years, I was thrilled (and relieved) to finally read something about Cocteau Twins that seems to actually get it. The trick is, there’s not much to get — no concrete explanations or grand theories are forthcoming, at least nothing beyond the ordinary — and Tapley understands that. An exquisite album like “Blue Bell Knoll” is precisely the right lens to dive in to the curious, fascinating enigma that was Cocteau Twins. Their music often defied explanation and confounded critics and journalists, and its creators were not much help in clarifying things, either. This book manages to get at both the practical truth of it and imagines what it might ultimately have meant, even if such meanings were entirely unintentional. Lucidly written, carefully researched, and thoughtfully considerate, this book may not be the definitive Cocteau Twins book, but it’s the best so far outside of anything written by the former band members themselves (such as Simon Raymonde’s excellent memoir, In One Ear). If you’re a fan, you owe it to yourself to read this.

[Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Instead of writing about the meaning of the songs of the Cocteau Twins, the author discusses the many failed attempts by the British press in the 80’s to try to suss out the meaning of Elizabeth Fraser’s lyrics in interviews.

Many (most?) listeners have a hard time listening to music without trying to assign a meaning to it.

I don’t know what the Twins influences are but there is a long tradition in the arts in the 20th century of absurdity, surrealism and abstraction.

The Surrealist’s techniques of automatic writing and collage were ways to bypass logic and access the deepest recesses of the mind. The Cocteau’s music is also created entirely through intuition in the service of beauty.

Unlike Surrealist poetry or James Joyce though where you can read the words even if you can’t make out the meaning, Elizabeth Fraser’s lyrics are largely buried in layers of guitars and effects.

It’s an abstract art like the paintings of Mark Rothko where you need to shut off your analytical mind and appreciate the work for its luminous beauty.

[Mads · Rating 4 out of 5]

david lynch mention... grangemouth mention... crazy

fr though this is really good. exactly the kind of writing i'd like to do, actually!!

[Micah Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Predictably a lot of grasping for adjectives, but it has a lot of interesting historical information, some of which is gleaned from interviews with Robin and Simon done exclusively for this book, which include some quite insightful retrospective comments.