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God Help the Girls
Or, the many muses of Stuart Murdoch
Stuart Murdoch, in Heaven? (Photo: acb, via Flickr)
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Like many male songwriters, Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch has taken a keen interest in writing about women and applying those musings to song. But unlike many of his male contemporaries, Stuart tends to stray from the damning of a female encounter gone awry; instead, Stuart’s songs are fictionalized third-person coming-of-age narratives centered on strong, independent female protagonists. Each song can be viewed as an empathetic bildungsroman relaying the angst, confusion and heartache of lovelorn teenage melancholy. In preparation for the band’s show at the Williamsburg Waterfront tonight (their first tour in four years), Encore takes a brief look back at the history of Stuart Murdoch and his foray into the land of women.
Set to the backdrop of working-class Glasgow, Stuart’s songs often focus on empowered but unusual girls, noted social outcasts who are bored, promiscuous and checking out the demands that come with growing up. Though it might sound a bit suspect for a 40-year-old man to be writing songs about teenage girls, Stuart’s songs are never presented as more than vivid tales of life on the outside and the misfits who lead it.
Early in his twenties, Stuart Murdoch was laid up with M.E., (myalgic encephalomyelitis, or chronic fatigue syndrome), which was diagnosed while he was in the middle of university. Stuart was forced to move back home and has said that his time in confinement was spent ruminating on his life prior to the diagnosis, and that the subjects of his songs, which often center on school-aged kids, may have something to do with a constant reflection of better days. To Stuart, the female protagonist may have seemed a fascinating territory, whose occasional social constraints, even in a liberated society, could match the trapped feelings he may have felt during his time at home.
The beginnings of Belle and Sebastian started, fittingly, with boy meets girl. In the case of Stuart and former bandmate Isobel Campbell, it was “boy meets girl in a restroom line at a New Year’s Eve party,” boy falls for girl’s inebriated witticisms and, consequently, writes a lovestruck, earnest song for girl (the appropriately titled “My Wandering Days Are Over,” which appears on the band’s first album, Tigermilk). The infatuated Stuart then invited Isobel to play with his newly formed band, where she gradually began to find her place—and voice—among a crew of endearingly eager male musicians. For the next six years, Isobel would serve as Stuart’s muse in good times and bad, prompting indirect (and, in the case of “I’m Waking Up to Us,” achingly direct) inspiration for some of the band’s most memorable songs.
During Isobel’s stint in the band, she and Stuart often had a turbulent and resolutely undefined relationship that would nearly drive the band apart in later years (Isobel’s abrupt departure during the 2002 tour saved them the trouble). But long before discrepancies arose, a new female influence joined the band, a violinist named Sarah Martin (who has now exchanged roles with Isobel as the band’s lone female member). Sarah became involved in the band through her roommate, Jason McPhail of the band V-Twin, who was also a friend of Stuart. When Belle and Sebastian’s former violinist moved to Ireland, Stuart asked a hesitant Sarah to take his place, and she, after listening and loving the band’s earlier recordings, agreed. From 1996 until 2002, Isobel and Sarah contributed the cello, violin, backing vocals and the occasional solo song to the band, establishing the desperately beautiful yearning now associated with the band’s wistful melodies of coming-of-age malaise.
After Isobel’s departure in 2002, the band tried a new label and a new sound, which resulted in more mainstream acclaim. Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003) and The Life Pursuit (2006) saw Belle and Sebastian at a creative crossroads, and the band took a break to regroup and pursue other interests before releasing a new album. During that time, Stuart began to develop a film project, titled God Help the Girl, and sought out vocalists for the narrative soundtrack centered on the film’s heroine, Eve. Stuart enlisted Catherine Ireton, a singer with pop music experience, to star in his film. (God Help the Girl details a series of stories centered on the daily lives of several women.) Though Stuart penned (and is still penning) the project, the remaining contributors are all female, save for a few of Belle and Sebastian’s collaborating members.
In the meantime, Stuart and the band are touring to promote Write About Love (out October 12th in the U.S.), in which Stuart enlisted not one but two female singers to assist on the albums middle tracks, including the title track (sung by twee-heart and Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan, whose portrayal of Jenny in 2009’s An Education serves as the physical embodiment of many of Murdoch’s songs). Though touring will pit Murdoch away from his great two loves (his wife, photographer Marisa Privitera, and his hometown of Glasgow), a new tour—and the Judy’s, Lisa’s and Jane’s met along the way—will surely serve to remind Murdoch that, winsome and wistful, the characters he have created will set to inspire and empower a new generation of songwriters, male and female.