Last year, Belle And Sebastian released Late Developers, the companion to their 2023 comeback album A Bit Of Previous. Today, the prolific indie pop band is back with “What Happened To You Son?,” which was cut from Late Developers.

“‘What Happened To You Son’ got pulled rather randomly from the last LP because the LP felt one track too long. Out it came,” lead vocalist Stuart Murdoch said in a statement. He continued:

The song is about my youth, and the funny hole I fell into in my late teens. I was failing at my university course, failing in almost everything I tried around then. I was obsessed with the music of the time, I used to hang so much on the lyrics and message and feeling of certain bands of the 80s era – it probably wasn’t healthy.

So although the theme of this song is a little accusatory, the fault is with the beholder. I could have switched off at any time. Instead I let the singers become my penpals and my deities.

The song tries to address what happens when the pop stars grow up, and change, and go a different way, and seem to betray the stance they held when you loved them the most.

The song finishes hopefully, however. There’s always a way forward, always a light to guide you if you look closely, if you give up part of yourself, if you let yourself flow and change.

“What Happened To You Son” is a jangle-pop epic with a beautiful bass solo. Its release is in part to promote their upcoming North American tour, as well as their two-day concert series called The Glasgow Weekender, which also has Camera Obscura, the Vaselines, and more. Meanwhile, Murdoch is set to release his debut novel, Nobody’s Empire, this fall. Hear “What Happened To You Son?” below.