Second just to being born / Second to dying too / What else would you do? / What else would you do?

*

I’ve felt held and cradled by the songwriting of Stuart Murdoch (Belle & Sebastian) for two decades.

It started in 2006 with Jam, my six-years-elder sibling, who gave me the first two real CDs I ever had with the booklets intact and everything. Jam was 18, preparing to leave home and cleaning things out. I was 12 years old with a Discman, a Razor scooter, and a library card.

The CDs were:
– 5 Songs EP (2001) by The Decemberists
– Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003) by Belle & Sebastian

They both went triple platinum in my bedroom.

It was the same year, I remember, that Jam gave me a copy of The Catcher in the Rye, and that our oldest brother Josh sent me a letter with a Chinese map for an envelope while studying abroad. The world felt full of ideas and beautiful places.

As 2006 wore on, I learned to rip CDs into mp3 files and pirate entire discographies on the family iMac. I discovered that Belle & Sebastian had so many other albums out:

– Tigermilk (1996)
– If You’re Feeling Sinister (1996)
– The Boy With the Arab Strap (1998)
– Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant (2000)
– Storytelling (2002)
– Push Barman to Open Old Wounds (2005)
– The Life Pursuit (2006)

I was careful to maintain cover art and other details in my imports, and tickled that my local Decemberists and distant Scottish darlings Belle & Sebastian could both be labeled under the genre “lit pop.”

For Christmas I was given a pink iPod nano, and inside that iPod I stashed my many gigabytes of spoils.

My brothers continued to bring me formative treasures in my teen years: Wes Anderson films, a pair of burned Joanna Newsom CDs with folksy Sharpie drawings, old copies of Camus and Kafka, a hardbound journal that made me want to use my good handwriting and record big thoughts only.

I came of age in this alternative culture of mod revival, favoring goldenrod and avocado green over the brash neons dominating late noughties pop culture.

*

Stuart Murdoch was there with me all along, providing the soundtrack.

This softspoken, slightly lisping Glaswegian man and his band piped into my ears and soul the most tender, witty, sensual, twinkling twee bangers imaginable. I bopped and jived. I related to the lyrics about reading books, daydreaming, getting bullied at school, feeling melancholic about religion, and pursuing a life of art and style.

I was 15 when Tigermilk, Belle & Sebastian’s 1996 debut record, really connected with me. I was aware by that point that I was attracted to other girls, and equally aware that homosexuality was a cardinal sin.

Picture me taking the schoolbus to Waldport High School, land of camo pajama bottoms and Monster Energy drinks, dressed in full twee femme drag: yellow gingham with cream lace trim I had sewn on, tights, Oxford heels, vintage sweater clip pinning my brown cardigan on, red lipstick. I’m listening to “Expectations” while I scheme on how to get out of running the mile today so my pin curls don’t get messed up before I can sneak off to meet my girlfriend under the bridge.

In Tigermilk, Murdoch sang from perspectives I had never heard vocalized before. Young women who decide they only want to date other women (“She’s Losing It”)! Young men who fantasize about killing other men who abuse women (“I Could Be Dreaming”)! Schoolchildren who vandalize the town bus stop because it’s pretty and they can (“We Rule the School”).

*

In September 2022, at 28, I flew to Glasgow to walk the West Highland Way. Though I arrived quite ill, having contracted a stomach virus in transit, I was delighted to reach my hotel room overlooking Glasgow Central and a row of gorgeous sandstone buildings.

After two days sticking to a liquid diet and peoplewatching out the window, BBC Alba on in the background, I strapped on my backpack and took the train up to Milngavie to start the 96-mile hike.

I made it about 13 miles over two days, a slow pace, before I had to pitch my tent and spend an entire day lying down. My body was not yet accepting food at the rate of caloric intake needed for what I was up to; my energy was zapped.

It started to rain in the afternoon, I remember, as I lay there in my tent trying to take little bites of food. I decided that this whole debacle called for using my limited phone battery to listen to music.

I wondered if Stuart was down there in Glasgow with a tune in his head right now as I hit play on the Belles discography (now including all their excellent newer albums too — paid for, I swear).

Tigermilk played as I laid there on Conic Hill, almost hallucinatory in my hunger, really listening to it.

The last several years had been impossibly hard. Jam was dead. I had been truly depressed and moved home 2019-2021. In some twisted act of self-hatred, I had even attempted to date men again and had been abused.

By the time I got to the last track, “Mary Jo,” I realized I was weeping hot, thick streams of tears.

(“Well who could blame her if she sleeps?
Who could blame her if she’s sleeping?”)

It dawned on me that the last several years had been horrible, yes, but also that they were over. Hadn’t I gotten back up again?

Wasn’t I writing again? Drawing? Dancing?

Hadn’t I completed a year of intensive therapy, then started working at a therapy office to help other people?

(“And now you are the one who’s strong enough to help them
The one who’s strong enough to help them
The one who’s strong enough to help them all”)

Saved money and bought a one-way ticket to Scotland?

Escaped?

Suddenly this hike was not just a bit of fun, but was an act of pure freedom and liberation. I had remembered my identity, my self-worth, the style and substance of my own life, and gotten up to go do things again.

(“A sorry tale of action and the men you left for
Women, and the men you left for
Intrigue, and the men you left for dead”)

I was feeling ill in that moment, but I was ill on a hill in Scotland for fuck’s sake, of my own volition, instead of choosing between being tortured by a man or sleeping 14 hours a day in my childhood bedroom.

I was Mary Jo on the other side.

And Mary Jo got up the next day, blanched while eating a protein bar, and carried on for 83 more miles to Fort William.

*

This year Belle & Sebastian are on a 30th anniversary tour playing both Tigermilk and If You’re Feeling Sinister — two PERFECT albums made in 1996 — in full, plus songs from other albums.

I have never seen them live before, ever, and not only do I get to attend both sets this year after a lifetime of listening, but I spoke with Stuart (!) last month and get to participate in a small way on Tigermilk night.

Basically: oh my god.

More on that when it happens, but I had to share a little background before all of that excitement.

In the meantime: reading The State I Am In, searching for a thespian with a caravanette in Hull…

Thanks for reading!