BELLE & Sebastian were already confirmed indie darlings, but 1998’s “The Boy With An Arab Strap” was the song that hurled them from the fringes towards the mainstream. Despite the song’s rolling Fender Rhodes melody, handclaps and Sarah Martin’s joyous, back-to-school recorder solo, the song wasn’t exactly cheery. Written by Stuart Murdoch, it addressed his feeling of isolation as he sat on the top deck of a London bus while his bandmates partied with Aidan Moff at and Malcolm Middleton of Arab Strap. The band had just played two nights at the ICA supporting the Tindersticks and then headlined the Borderline – Murdoch was on top of the world, but he felt away from the fun.
“I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or ME,” says Murdoch. “That meant I had to develop my own way of coping. There’d be a certain point when everybody else was carrying on with the party and I would disappear and do my own thing, which usually meant sitting quietly somewhere. As I reference in the song, I would later hear about what happened with the guys from Arab Strap, all the drinking and the partying, and have this feeling of missing out. I felt like the jester who came along afterwards and wrote about the things that I’d missed.”
When Murdoch first played the song to his bandmates, they weren’t entirely receptive. The most marked dissent came from Isobel Campbell, who was in a relationship with Murdoch at the time“…Arab Strap” became the title track for the band’s third album – which is reissued on vinyl to mark its 25th anniversary.
