Maggie Roche, the songwriter whose serene alto anchored the close harmonies of the Roches, her trio with her sisters Terre and Suzzy, died on Saturday. She was 65.

Suzzy Roche said the cause was breast cancer. Maggie Roche lived in New York City.

“She was a private person, too sensitive and shy for this world, but brimming with life, love, and talent,” Suzzy Roche wrote on the Roches’ Facebook page. “She was smart, wickedly funny, and authentic — not a false bone in her body — a
brilliant songwriter, with a distinct unique perspective, all heart and soul.”

Ms. Roche developed a pop-folk songwriting style that could be droll or diaristic, full of unexpected melodic turns and often inseparable from the way the sisters’ voices harmonized and diverged.

On albums from the early 1970s into the 2000s, Maggie Roche’s songs chronicled a woman’s life from early stirrings of independence (“The Hammond Song”) and amorous entanglements (“The Married Men”) to thoughts on longtime connection (“Can
We Go Home Now”). They often mixed heartfelt revelations and flinty punch lines.

With the Roches, and in duos with each of her sisters, she released more than a dozen albums. The Roches never had a major hit, but the group maintained a devoted following. They shrugged off disappointments in “Big Nuthin’,” a song the trio wrote
together.

Maggie Roche, the songwriter whose serene alto anchored the close harmonies of the Roches, her trio with her sisters Terre and Suzzy, died on Saturday. She was 65.

Suzzy Roche said the cause was breast cancer. Maggie Roche lived in New York City.

“She was a private person, too sensitive and shy for this world, but brimming with life, love, and talent,” Suzzy Roche wrote on the Roches’ Facebook page. “She was smart, wickedly funny, and authentic — not a false bone in her body — a
brilliant songwriter, with a distinct unique perspective, all heart and soul.”

Ms. Roche developed a pop-folk songwriting style that could be droll or diaristic, full of unexpected melodic turns and often inseparable from the way the sisters’ voices harmonized and diverged.

On albums from the early 1970s into the 2000s, Maggie Roche’s songs chronicled a woman’s life from early stirrings of independence (“The Hammond Song”) and amorous entanglements (“The Married Men”) to thoughts on longtime connection (“Can
We Go Home Now”). They often mixed heartfelt revelations and flinty punch lines.

With the Roches, and in duos with each of her sisters, she released more than a dozen albums. The Roches never had a major hit, but the group maintained a devoted following. They shrugged off disappointments in “Big Nuthin’,” a song the trio wrote
together.

“We’d like to make a million dollars and be set for life,” Maggie Roche told The Los Angeles Times in 1995. “We’ve been lucky, though. We have a career, and that is a gift. I guess I want things to be easy, but that’s not the way it is.”

Margaret A. Roche was born Oct. 26, 1951, and grew up in Park Ridge, N.J. The sisters sang in Roman Catholic church choirs, and Maggie started writing songs after getting a guitar for her birthday in 1964. She and Terre formed a duo, performing at first
for Democratic Party fund-raisers in New Jersey.

They attended a songwriting seminar given by Paul Simon at New York University in 1970, and he had them sing harmony on his 1972 album “There Goes Rhymin’ Simon.”

Mr. Simon signed them to a production company he had formed for young musicians, and he was also among the producers of the Maggie and Terre Roche’s debut album, “Seductive Reasoning,” released in 1975.

Suzzy Roche joined her sisters in 1976 and, as a trio, the Roches became a local sensation at clubs in Greenwich Village. One of their stage favorites was a snappy three-part harmony version of the “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s “Messiah.”

Their 1979 debut album, “The Roches,” was produced by Robert Fripp of the band King Crimson. It included “The Married Men,” which was later recorded by Phoebe Snow.

Despite modest sales, the Roches persisted, making albums for Warner Bros. and, later, MCA. Their songs appeared in the soundtrack to the 1988 film “Crossing Delancey,” and in 1991, their voices were characters in the Steven Spielberg animated series
“Tiny Toons Adventures.”

The Roches made a Christmas album, “We Three Kings,” in 1990, and a children’s album, “Will You Be My Friend?,” in 1994. The trio disbanded after the 1995 release of “Can We Go Home Now?” but Maggie and Suzzy Roche made albums as a duo in
2002 and 2004 and the Roches made a final trio album, “Moonswept,” in 2007.

Along with her two sisters, Ms. Roche is survived by her mother, Jude Roche; her brother, Dave; her son, Ed McTeigue; and her partner, Michael McCarthy.

Ray Arthur

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