'He Did It In 24 days. And I Took 48 Years To Appreciate It.'
ToT Interview 001: Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian on Handel's 'Messiah' (Especially Movement 20) + God in Music + Loneliness at Christmas
From the start, I meant to include occasional songwriter interviews in the Tracks on Tracks mix. Musicians are always getting asked to talk about their own songs, which I suspect often makes them feel a little silly, especially the more the same questions and answers get repeated. Why not harness their special songwriters’ perspectives to talk about other writers’ songs and the roles they’ve played in their lives?
It took a while1, but I’m thrilled to be running our first such interview today with none other than Stuart Murdoch, the songwriter and frontman of Belle and Sebastian. Murdoch’s songs have been a fixture of my life since I was 17 (a topic I once wrote about for The New Yorker), and day-one Tracks followers will remember that the essay I used to launch the project was about my long relationship with one of his greatest, “Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying.” It was a delight to meet Murdoch on Zoom—Chicago to Edinburgh—and hear about how a recent ecstatic experience with Handel’s “Messiah” lifted him up at the end of a tough year. (Also: some news of his next writing project.)
Anyone who enjoys this conversation will find much to like in Nobody’s Empire, Murdoch’s forthcoming autobiographical coming-of-age novel about chronic fatigue syndrome, faith, and music. It’s out on January 21st and available for pre-order. He also has a US book tour coming up, featuring evenings where he’ll read, sing, and take questions:
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And now, without further ado …
Tracks on Tracks Interview 001: Stuart Murdoch
(Our conversation has been edited down to the length of a standard Tracks piece.)
Murdoch: I’ve known this piece of music since I was seven years old. My mom was in the town choir—what they call in Scotland a choral union—and they did popular pieces, light opera, and these funny pieces of music called oratorios, which are long pieces, usually sacred, that were written specifically for choirs with soloists, often with some orchestral backing. And “Messiah” would always get rolled out at the end of the year. We kids were required to go along and sell programs. And it would just seem impossibly boring: the same words over and over again, not much of a tune, endless. We would count the ornamental stars on the ceiling. We’d look forward to getting lemonade at halftime.
Later, in my twenties, I would go see my aunt sing “Messiah” in the equivalent choir in Edinburgh, which was bigger. And I started to appreciate the music and themes a bit more.
But it wasn’t until recently that I really connected with it. Just a few weeks ago.
TRACKS ON TRACKS: What happened?
SM: I saw there was a “Messiah” happening close to me, a church performance by a small ensemble called the Dunedin Consort. I bought a ticket for myself. I was really happy to go by myself. I felt drawn to it.
TT: Do you know why?
SM: Well, first, the subject matter. It’s a spiritual piece. It’s got God and Christmas and Jesus at the center. And, you know, I am a Christian. When people interview me or write about my music, that often gets pushed off to one side. I think a lot of people think ‘Well, he must be kind of a Christian. He must be interested in Christianity. I’ve heard he’s a Buddhist.’ And I don’t mind that. But, you know, I’m a Christian, I’m—
TT: It’s sort of everywhere in your music.
SM: Sure, yeah, but at the same time… it’s always couched a bit in metaphor. And I kind of make it groovy. Like hipster Christian.
I’ve had a difficult couple of years with mental health. I’ve got chronic fatigue syndrome. Everyone thinks I’m over that as well, because they see me playing with the band. But I had a really significant setback about a month ago; I collapsed in a store and ended up in a hospital. And when things get tough, I lean on God. I lean on my spirituality. I have to. So that’s part of why I went to see this ensemble.
Also, I’d told myself earlier this year that I wanted to write some sacred music. I knew I didn’t want to write another Belle and Sebastian record next. I wanted to write something that could be sung in a church. And I’m still not sure what that’s going to be. It could be Southern gospel. It could be straight up church. It could be happy clappy singalong. But I for once want to just tell it straight, to sing about God and spirituality in a very straightforward way. So I’m thinking more about how to do that.
And this “Messiah” was electric. It was ecstatic for me, it was extremely moving. There were maybe a dozen singers, four soloists, and a small chamber ensemble. The conductor also played harpsichord. And it was like I was hearing the piece for the first time.
TT: What did you hear?
SM: It’s like a prayer. The whole piece is about God. It’s for God, but it crucially feels like it’s with God. It was written like God was a part of it, you know. To me, music comes from God, and this came from God through Handel, like a testimony and a prayer. And it’s all about promise. The first half is about the promise in Jesus’s birth, and the second half is about the promise in Jesus’s death. It doesn’t talk about his life in action. It’s really simple but very masterful.
For the first half I wasn’t feeling well. I thought I might not make it through, that I might pass out. But right before the interval, in movement 20, there’s a duet between the alto and soprano soloists. And as that point approached, I thought, I can’t. I can’t take this. If those woman are going to start singing at the same time and harmonizing with each other, I don’t think I’m going to be able to take it. And they did, and it was just amazing.
Then in the second half I was more comfortable, and by the end it was a deeply religious experience. Handel wrote the whole thing in 24 days, apparently. He was in a flow. He stumbled into it. It wasn’t like he’d been writing this stuff. He’d been writing operas before that, and operas went out of fashion, so he had to switch, to try this oratorio stuff. The words were written by somebody else for him. And he got into a flow. I think of it sort of like The Beatles. How did they write and record all that music so quickly? They were in a unique position in time and space. And so was Handel. He did it in 24 days. And it took me 48 years to appreciate it.
TT: A Christmas miracle.
SM: You know, for me, Christmas is Christmas music. I don’t really like Christmas otherwise. Christmas for me is quite a lonely time. There’s this notion of everybody getting together, but my perception of it is people leaving town. Everybody seems to leave. Things get quieter. Our family is just on its own, and we don’t really see many people. But I love Christmas music, especially church Christmas music. And I really hold on to it. Going to church services. Tuning in to the radio programs. It’s an important part of the year.
I put this in a scene in Nobody’s Empire, where the main character, who is basically me, starts to understand the meaning of Christmas because he goes to see the girl he’s in love with singing in a church choir and hears them do “Bleak Midwinter.”
TT: Did this recent experience with “Messiah” take you back to your childhood, selling choir programs?
SM: You know, it’s kind of weird. My mom passed away just over a year ago. And when I showed up at the church I found a seat right in the front, and nobody took the seat next to me. I kept thinking that my mom was sitting in that seat. And that was very… these are the trick your mind plays. I could hear her saying, “Oh, I thought the solos were very good. I thought maybe the tenor was a little bit off. But, you know, I thought it was very good.” And I messaged my sister after the show to tell her that. ✹
I keep a running list of books by or featuring Tracks contributors at Bookshop.org. When you buy a book using a link from a Tracks essay, or from one of my Bookshop lists, I receive a small commission.
Though, in the meantime, I did coax Phil Elverum to let us excerpt his morning listening diary, and
to write about inventing a new electronic genre, “hit em.”
Interesting interview Peter, I enjoyed hearing from Stuart about his perspective on the holiday and his upbringing.
Thank u so much for this!