For a while in 2015, for me, there was nothing but this song. I listened to it shortly after I listened , for the first time, Destroyer, a Canadian-based project led by singer-songwriter Dan Bejar. 2006’s Destroyer’s Rubies was the second album I enjoyed from what is now one of my favorite bands of the century, and my favorite song on it is ‘Painter In Your Pocket’. I remember pasting the Youtube link of the song in every ‘recommend some music’ Facebook publication I saw that year.

The song starts with Bejar’s voice sounding like he’s in the room next door with nothing but his acoustic guitar. With his characteristic poetic ramblings, Bejar’s describes how he is attracted to a woman he doesn’t stand a chance with, one he remarks has changed with a little help from the influence of the people she frequents, and that’s something that bothers him when she meets her again after some years.

‘I didn’t stand a chance/I couldn’t stand at all’ he claims in the second verse, accompanied by only a few sweet guitar notes and discreet percussions. The song keeps going steadily with this aesthetic, one the combines perfectly with Bejar’s dispassionate delivery, a drunken-like voice that you can’t tell when will it go to the next word or if the subsequent verse will sound like a whisper.

One of the best parts of the song is the chorus. In it, Bejar only poses questions and doesn’t recieve answers. ‘Where did you get that line? Where did you get that look? Where did you get that penchant for destruction in the way you talk?’. All of them seem to question the changes Bejar notices in the woman he’s talking to, from the way she talks to the way she looks. I’m particularly fond of the ‘penchant for destruction’ part, specially because when he asks, Bejar actually sounds somewhat exasperated.

The first time we hear the chorus, it sounds practically the same as the verse, and its followed by a pleasant guitar solo. After that Bejar sings another verse, this time hesitatingly admitting that he’s probably not that different from her after he claims that ‘she needed reminding to stay alive’. At the end of that verse Bejar lets go a short ‘Ah!’ and then the bass, the drums and another guitar enter. The chorus is repeated now sounding more fleshed out, as if the band is trying to underline all the questioning.

I would later find out that, by the time this song was released, Destroyer were kind of indie darlings, and Bejar was a temporary member of another major indie-rock band of the 00s, The New Pornographers. His style is unique and ‘Painter In Your Pocket’ makes an important case in its favor. There’s the drum fill before the last chorus or the quiet synths that appear throughout the song. But its Bejar’s wordplay that gets the spotlight, and you just need to listen how he asks the woman he’s talking to, the source of a mildling frustration, about the artsy guy she’s dating: ‘How did you get that painter in your pocket?’