ELLIOTT SMITH EITHER OR EXPANDED EDITION FULL
He was in full party mode, smiling and buying everyone drinks. My friend Rosy and I drove up the weekend of the Tibetan Freedom Concert and met Dorien and Elliott at Brownies. I couldn’t stop playing it and thought, “Who is this nerdy guy who’s speaking directly to me and making me cry?”Ī few months later, I told my friend Dorien Garry, who I used to visit a lot up in New York, about my obsession, and she was like, “Oh, I’m friends with him.
That album was the most beautiful thing I’d heard in a long time, and I became totally obsessed with it. I had never heard of Elliott before I listened to Either/Or. I had been going through a hard time in Washington, D.C., and felt like I was losing my mind. Someone from Kill Rock Stars sent me Elliott Smith’s new album Either/Or right after it came out in 1997. And it closes with a song as beautiful and hopeful and unaffected as “Say Yes.” And how, despite them, it’s still at its crux a “guy with an acoustic guitar” record. There’s something so heartfelt about the way they’re played. I’ve always particularly loved the drums on Either/Or-they sound so unhinged, whether they’re doing the muggy simmering thing or distorting like crazy and being played half to death, or that honky snare note in “Alameda,” or the songs (there are a couple) where they crash in just inordinately late. It’s always been this way, with everything he does, but Either/Or is my absolute favorite of favorites. His music, with utmost simplicity, draws me into my most vulnerable listening state, eliciting immediate nostalgia tinged with welcome yet bittersweet heartache. An honest song, an openhearted one has much to guard in an atmosphere indelicate and falsely motivated.īecca Stevens, jazz, pop, and folk singerĮlliott Smith’s Either/Or tramples my heart like a water buffalo in a tulip patch. I know the feeling of dismay and distrust and often distanced myself from the elements of the music industry that cause one to be wary. “Someone’s always comin round here trailing some new kill.” I can relate to the disenchantment that seems to have generated this writing. But when I listen to Elliott Smith, it feels so clear that so much of what he writes comes from such an introspective place-and that even a song that feels deeply insular can be broadly impactful if it’s done with authenticity.Įlliott Smith is one of a relatively small collection of songwriters that I have listened and returned to over and over again throughout my life. My favorite tunes on Either/Or are “Speed Trials” for its unusual phrasing and melody, “Behind the Bars” as a gentle love song from a devoted witness to a friend in need of a honest and gentle reflection, and most of all the song “Angeles.” I miss him.Ī lot of times when I am writing songs I wonder if I’m being too cryptic-if I’m writing something that is so personal as to be inherently unrelatable. I saw him perform live a few times down South and in NYC and was lucky to witness his genius. His songwriting and the DIY aesthetic is what inspired me to step out from behind the drum kit to write and produce my own songs. It spoke to the beautiful infinite sadness in my soul, a lot of people’s souls. It’s such a fucking loss, because I know Kurt had an album like Either/Or in him, and Elliott could have helped him see it through.Įither/Or was the final straw for me. They would have just fit each other so well. And then Kurt could have been the screamer that Elliott was never.
ELLIOTT SMITH EITHER OR EXPANDED EDITION HOW TO
So to me, I always thought, damn, if they made a band or if they had met, I honestly feel Elliott would have been like a younger brother to Kurt and Elliott would have showed Kurt how to tone it back and be more musical, and more subtle. And Elliott loved Kurt, and he loved Nirvana, and he would ask me about him. Music, to both of them, was the most important thing. They were both people who loved music so much, and they were both so incredibly similar, I think that the music they could have created as a team would have kept them alive. And that’s what bums me out so much, not just because of the fact that they both fucking died, but they could have been buddies and they might have even hung on for each other. I’m gonna go there now, I don’t know how Lennon and McCartney met, but if they hadn’t it would have been a complete miss of an opportunity. He would have gone to one of the shows, or they would have met somehow. And if fucking Kurt had just stuck around for a few more months, which was when Elliott had started to record, I know for a fucking fact that he would have adored Elliott. And when you’re talking about the loss, if Kurt had just fucking stayed alive for a couple of more months, if you look at the timeline and you look at where both of them were geographically, they were only like two hours away from each other.
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