This is part of a new series where I thumb through my music collection and write 500 words or less about a song I love. I’m organizing them around a theme. This first collection will be The Outliers. What’s the hook? It means other than this song, I’m either: oblivious to the rest of the respective artist’s discography, or actively hostile.

Artist: Vetiver

Song: "Wonder Why"

Album: The Errant Charm

Year: 2011

Length: 3:22

My dad was a musician, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, his taste had a huge impact on my own. He came of age in the sixties (his first album was Beatles ‘65). And weaving through all of his favorite music, there was one sonic element that, if a song had it, you could set your watch to him being a fan.

Jangle.

Usually the product of a 12-string Rickenbacker guitar, the kind George Harrison and John Lennon played (treat yourself with a listen of “If I Needed Someone”). It has a shimmering, almost bell-like quality. Known purveyors of this sound include The Byrds, R.E.M., and the Smiths.

Wonder Why by Vetiver on TIDAL

Listen to Wonder Why on TIDAL

“Wonder Why” by Vetiver doesn’t use a 12-string (at least, I don’t think so), but the opening captures the same bright poppiness: it’s like if the Shins reimagined the opening of “Here Comes the Sun.”

I’m not sure how I even came across this song. As anyone who read my graphic novel Spectrum (co-created with Dave Chisholm) knows by now, I’m highly sensitive to color—and The Errant Charm’s hazy, morning sunrise watercolor blend of pink (my favorite color) and fire orange surely must have caught my eye as I flipped through an issue of Under the Radar or some other music magazine of the early 2010s.

If I’ve ever listened to the surrounding album, all memory of that experience has long left me. I know nothing about Vetiver, except the lead guy seems to like goofy hats. But according to the play counter in iTunes¹, “Wonder Why” is in my top 20 most-played songs ever, up there with songs by some of my all-time favs, like Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Bowie, and Gillian Welch.

What accounts for its replay value? Like the best pop music, it gets to the point—and doesn’t overstay its welcome. After the jangly intro (the guitar is quickly joined by a piano, crystalizing its earworm melody), the drums kick in and lead us through a breezy pair of verses, the first of which opens with a great line (“One foot in their fiction, one in mine”)². By the time the chorus has passed, its guitar solo, middle 8, then back through the chorus a few more times as an ethereal “why” hovers.

Maybe it’s the question that keeps me coming back. Why is the world the way it is? Why can’t we change it? Why? I do wonder why.

Or maybe it’s the song’s dreamy, elliptical quality that makes it easy for me to hit “loop” and get lost in its gauzy cotton candy sonics….

Are there any other Vetiver songs you can recommend? Maybe they have more hidden gems! Let me know in the comments.