One of my latest musical obsessions is the Scottish septet Belle & Sebastian. The band has been around since the mid-1990s, but it took a throwaway mention of them on CBS's "How I Met Your Mother" to get me to give them a listen. I've had their 2003 CD "Dear Catastrophe Waitress" in constant rotation ever since, and I downloaded their latest, "The Life Pursuit," from the iTunes Music Store just last night.

One song in particular from the new collection, "Funny Little Frog," hasn't stopped bouncing around my brain since I first heard the band perform it two weeks ago on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." Now that I have a copy of the song on my iPod, I can't stop listening to it. This morning, for example, the CD I was listening to on the treadmill ended 9 minutes before the end of my workout, so I filled in the remaining time by listening to "Happy Little Frog" -- three times in a row.

The bouncing cadence and hypnotic arrangement are in the best Brian Wilson tradition, but the lyrics are what I love most. Here's a sample:

I had a conversation with you at night,
It's a little one sided but that's all right,
I tell you in the kitchen about my day,
You sit on the bed in the dark changing places,
With the ghost that was there before you came,
You've come to save my life again.

Most songs about secret crushes and unrequited love are slow and depressing, but Belle & Sebastian turn that formula on its head. Not only is "Funny Little Frog" an up-tempo song, it's also a happy one. The narrator actually seems to enjoy his "one sided" love affair. If only all pop songs could be so original.

A video of Belle & Sebastian's March 2nd performance of "Funny Little Frog" on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" is available at Prefixmag.com.

[Prefixmag.com] Belle & Sebastian - Funny Little Frog (Conan O'Brien)