One of the hardest things to write is a song that has no specific meaning but nonetheless conjures up powerful feelings or ideas. Bluntly themed, big-haired, Bon Jovi-like rock anthems are commonplace. But it takes someone of exceptional talent--R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan, Prince--to create a song that makes little rational sense but still rings true emotionally. We expect this from poets; we rarely get it from rockers.
On her new CD, Only Everything, singer-guitarist Juliana Hatfield moves from the forehead-slappingly obvious to the deftly oblique. On her last album, Become What You Are, she took swipes at easy...
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