Belle and Sebastian is the kind of band that I don’t like to like. As a working songwriter, it can be a little infuriating to hear a band sound so casual and off-handed and pull it off so beautifully. It’s that apathetic hipster stance that turns me off,  as though they’d be just as happy reading poetry in their bedrooms, heading back to drawing class, or playing soccer in the alley. I know from experience that laid-back recordings like theirs usually require tremendous effort. Sweat, even.

The band is a  7-member Scottish group led by androgynous, angelic singer, songwriter and pianist Stuart Murdoch. I like to call this kind of music schoolboy pop. It’s quiet, thoughtful, simple music that uses a range of instruments (lots of them from the obscure corners of an orchestra) that sound antiquated in that oh-so-post-modern way.

“The Fox in the Snow,” from the band’s second album If You’re Feeling Sinister, is one of those understated songs that doesn’t seem like much on first listen, but eventually sneaks up, grabs you and doesn’t let you go. For years.

It begins with a basic piano riff and rolls into a tale about a fox, a girl, a boy, and a kid – out in the snow, struggling for survival. The singer is urging a distressed friend to change course, take a rest, ignore the crowd, and find protection from the big bad world out there. In the last verse, it’s the kid in the snow who prevails – perhaps loving the snow as a thrill of a lifetime rather than letting it get her down.  All the while, the music gently washes over the listener, with violins, acoustic guitars and a vibraphone peeking out through the delicate arrangement.

One thing I appreciate about the song is that a child can enjoy it just as deeply as a grown-up; its literal meaning is just as rich as the metaphor within. (Coincidentally, the band is named after a children’s book by French author Cecile Aubry.) And for the message-hungry among us, the song is full of veiled lessons and intriguing quotes to ponder:

~ “The word out on the street is you are starving.”

~ “What do they know anyway? You’ll read it in a book tonight.”

~ “When your legs are black and blue, it’s time to take a holiday.”

“The Fox in the Snow” is endearingly quirky, and it’s both sufficiently cryptic and sufficiently detailed to work as pop poetry. To me, this is the essence of a great song, at least from a lyrical standpoint. The meaning is unclear and can take several forms, depending on what the listener brings to the listen. Still, it’s particular enough to pull you in and help you paint something of a mental picture. And it manages to say something universal without mining clichés.

A few years ago, I made a mix CD for a friend who had recently divorced, and I included “The Fox in the Snow” as one of the tracks. My friend later told me how much he loved the song, and that he didn’t know what the song meant but that he loved trying to figure it out. Regardless of the song’s murkiness, it clearly communicates love and concern for a suffering friend. My friend felt my sympathy for him through the song. Now how could I ever dislike Belle and Sebastian when it has provided me this warm exchange?

A little while back, my nine year-old son and I were doing “quick-writes” in tandem on a somewhat regular basis. We’d choose a writing prompt, set the timer for 10 minutes, and go. He had just discovered poetry, thanks to his superhero of a 3^rd grade teacher, and he felt a sense of confidence and adventure toward writing that I’d never seen from him before. One evening, he came up with the idea that we listen to a song and write about whatever came into our minds as it played. He chose the song: “Leave Me Alone,” a relatively obscure song written and performed by Michael Jackson, from his album Bad.

Here’s what I wrote:

As everyone even semi-tuned into popular music over the last 40 years knows, Michael Jackson brought a unique set of gifts and influential quirks to the pop culture arena: a distinctive singing style, signature dance moves, a sense of intense drama in creating a passionate performance. So completely musical, and so thrillingly theatrical.

Michael also had a way of expressing rage and sadness that was exuberant and oddly uplifting, as is clear in a song like “Leave Me Alone.” His words say, “I’m mad, I’m hurting, I’ve had it,” while his music says, “I’m filled with joy and elation in this moment of expression.” By hearing and watching him express and perform with impossibly graceful abandon, we get to witness how the music is lifting him beyond anger (at least temporarily, given his perennially troubled life) toward transcendent release. These snapshots of redemption within MJ’s extensive catalog of remarkable songs and videos will not only inspire us keep us squealing, moonwalking, and dressing with flare. They also remind us that music is medicine, and that making music can pull us through and over our struggles to a place where we can thrive, at least for a time.

I currently find myself in one of my “incubation periods.” (Am I sounding like a tortured artist? Good!) This has happened many times before, where I’ve backed off from doing my singer-songwriter project, usually in favor of other artistic work, but sometimes just to create more time and space for things unknown. Eventually, I end up circling back to writing and performing songs, with a few new things to say, or a few new ways to say the same old thing.

Right now, I’m on a creative writing jag. Words usually come pretty easily for me, and there’s a side of me that feels relief in hanging up the acoustic and just saying what’s on my mind without shaping it with chords, melody, and a great hook. As a medium, writing is so simple, versatile, portable and flexible. I can do it anywhere, for short spurts or for hours, and I only need a pen and paper, or my laptop. I can write about whatever I see, or whatever is on my mind. I can write about the past or keep it in the moment. I can write about what I know, or I can research something new for the sake of writing about it.

One thing I know about is music. At least, I know a lot of songs, and I generally know why I like or dislike them, because I’ve tried to write songs that I want to listen to over and over again. So, to keep this blog lively and meaningful for me, and hopefully for the folks who listen to my music, I’ve decided to write about songs that I have found to be compelling, addictive, beautifully crafted, emotionally devastating or otherwise remarkable.

I heard “Hammond Song” the other day, which is written and performed by the sister group the Roches. Their gorgeously menacing vocals are matched by Robert Fripp’s gorgeously menacing guitar work.  I was struck once again by how the song conveys family conflict through divine music that dips into dissonance and anger, to great dramatic effect, without ham-fisting the story. The song is about a woman who decides to go off to Hammond with her boyfriend, against the wishes of her family, and the lyrics are lines of dialogue that tell both sides of the conflict.

As a listener pulled into the mesmerizing undertow of sound, I can feel that maternal and sisterly pressure to straighten up and tow the family line. Domestic strife never sounded so enticing! What a release to hear a song that gives shape to something as indirect and as hard to pin down as passive-aggressive family behavior (A choice line: “We’ll always love you, but that’s not the point.”).

I haven’t fallen in love with every Roches song that I’ve heard, but I do enjoy the group’s distinctive sound, and I’m consistently moved by its carefree authenticity. When the Roches are singing together, their blend is pristine in a way that only siblings are able to achieve; when they sing as individuals, their distinct personalities and musical quirks are displayed unapologetically. Their lyrics are funny, bumpy, and pure. It’s all very endearing, and seems — dare I say it? — very 70′s! It harkens back to a time when pop music didn’t have to be so calculated and gimmicky in order to attract attention.

PS Where in the world is Hammond? It turns out that there are at least seven Hammonds in the US: Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Montana, New York, Oregon and Wisconsin. (Special thanks to Accuweather for providing this geo-trivia to me in a matter of seconds.)

YouTube Clip: “Hammond Song” by the Roches