When I was seven, not long after my family relocated from a beachside nothing-town to the bright lights of the city (or, rather, the dull yellow streetlights of the outer suburbs), my parents went the theatre to see Les Miserables. I had no interest in such things and would continue to kick up tantrums at the suggestion of seeing anything staged between two curtains for quite some time. (I remember a particularly lonely night at home while the rest of my family went to see Jesus Christ Superstar in primary school.)
Shortly after, however, my mother bought the soundtrack on cassette and proceeded to play it on repeat in her car, a place I could be found often, seeing as being seven, socially awkward and not into any form of physical activity lent itself to going many places with my mum: on the way to the shops, on ventures to various house inspections, on a trip to visit my cousins’ farm hours away to fetch one of a litter of pups for our new city life. It wasn’t long before those songs became ingrained in my childhood psyche, and one particularly stood out.
It was a sweet, sweeping tune sung by a melancholic, wise, young girl named, apparently, Cosette, wishing for a better life in which she isn’t mistreated and doesn’t know pain and sorrow. I connected with it well, obviously, but mostly I became completely smitten with the character of Cosette and did what all smitten men do – I named my new dog after her.
From then on, too, I was acquainted with that pop-culture character that has had a huge resurgence in recent times: the intelligent, mostly innocent female protagonist, unworldly yet knowing, partially trapped in her own mind, or by situation, and looking out with the dream of a better life. Perhaps that’s not an entirely fair portrait (though it isn’t intended as criticism), and maybe it isn’t a ‘character’ at all, but they’re certainly characteristics shared by many songwriters currently enjoying notoriety. The songwriters, too, are making the kind of sad, sweeping yet hopeful pop songs Cosette would sing from the speakers of my mother’s Toyota Camry.
In July last year, Scottish novelist Liam McIllvanney wrote in The Guardian on the God Help The Girl album created by Belle & Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch, a ‘concept album’ of sorts employing various singers that Murdoch went on to tell was in fact part of an ongoing film project. The album had a storytelling structure based on the recovery of a college-aged girl who’s suffered a breakdown (or as McIllvanney put it, “exploring the mindsets of damaged young women”), set to the sweet, sweeping pop Belle & Sebastian are known for. Not quite a musical, but not far off. McIllvanney linked the sound back to the old Postcard Records roster of bands, citing Orange Juice particularly as appropriate mothers to B&S’s creed and, hence, the album’s tone.
Orange Juice, B&S and God Help The Girl are all also relevant reference points to Sally Seltmann’s new record, Heart That’s Pounding, released last week through Shock Records. The album plays out like a piece of musical theatre, the story of a young woman – Seltmann – gazing out at the world and dealing with her inner turmoil, set to wonderfully jangly and conversation-paced orchestral indie pop.
The album begins with the line, “Dreams they come and go/This is one that I’ve had forever, I know/Been crossing my fingers and always hoping for it to come true,” and a simple beat opening out with heralding drums and golden rays of keyboard into the track Harmony To My Heartbeat. On The Borderline prances with strings and a ‘60s pop arrangement, Seltmann sweetly singing, “When I wake up in the morning I feel very numb/But I’m gonna get through…” The album goes on through a captivating narrative of Seltmann’s complex view of the world – damaged, hopeful, knowing and somewhat trapped.
Listening to it, I can’t help but remember the girl named Cosette I became smitten with as a child, the girl who could be seen as a blueprint for so many literary and musical characters. And I know that, somewhere, there’s a seven-year-old boy naming his new puppy Sally.
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