Rediscovering the Gentle Genius of Elliott Smith

 

Sometimes YouTube is a wonder. One of my favorite features is the “Watch It Again” feature which recycles your old watched videos at you. I have a lot of music in mine, and a recent rediscovery is Elliott Smith, whose “Between the Bars” as as heartbreaking as it is beautiful, and in each case, well, that’s a lot.

His voice has been described as “whispery, spiderweb-thin,” and the guitar is just as gentle and melancholy. I only know a little of his music and wind up thoroughly impressed. He doesn’t play a melody so much as he stalks it, hunting it around the corners of alternative chords and heading it off at the passes of subverted, jammed-up cadences. There’s always substance in the lyrics, at some times in glimpses, at others in a mad rush.

You may have heard this song, which is a bit more radio-friendly:

Smith was a troubled man with a rocker’s litany of nonsense and pain squeezed into a short life. I keep seeing him cited by acts I like, so I figured I would check him out. I didn’t rush out and buy any albums. I might. Meanwhile, I’m “getting into” Smith thanks to YouTube’s judicious leaky feedback loop.

Watch it again.

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  1. Ryan M Inactive
    Ryan M
    @RyanM

    Interestingly, my wife and I were both still in college in Portland when he committed suicide.  It was interesting how the funeral was city-wide, essentially.

    Between the bars is a great song.  There are several others as well, but you do have to be in some kind of mood to listen to a whole album.

    • #1
  2. Jon Gabriel, Ed. Contributor
    Jon Gabriel, Ed.
    @jon

    Beautiful remembrance, BDB. Elliot was surely one of a kind. I used to sulk over breakups to his albums XO and Either/Or. But whereas most of us can shake off the blues after a day or 12, Elliot never seemed to be able to. I pray that Mr. Smith is finally resting in peace.

    • #2
  3. Jules PA Inactive
    Jules PA
    @JulesPA

    Ball Diamond Ball: He doesn’t play a melody so much as he stalks it, hunting it around the corners of alternative chords and heading it off at the passes of subverted, jammed-up cadences. There’s always substance in the lyrics, at some times in glimpses, at others in a mad rush.

    Your description caused me to click the link and listen.

    I love the lack of pretension in his performance, a simple offering of sounds and ideas.

    I don’t know anything about him, but what was here in this post. I’m sad that he committed suicide. That suggests he didn’t know, or somehow couldn’t know, his value and contribution to others through his life and music. All of our loss.

    • #3
  4. Jules PA Inactive
    Jules PA
    @JulesPA

    I love the style contrast between the two links you shared.

    Compounds the sense of loss from his passing.

    • #4
  5. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Good stuff, BDB. New to me.

    • #5
  6. Ball Diamond Ball Member
    Ball Diamond Ball
    @BallDiamondBall

    Thanks fellers, and lady-fellers.

    • #6
  7. kylez Member
    kylez
    @kylez

    You never know what you’re going to see at the top of a Ricochet feed. The closest he got to mainstream attention was his song in Good Will Hunting, which he performed at the Oscars. He definitely was a downer, and had a tragic death. I got some of his stuff years ago, without ever being a big fan. One of my favorites was actually on a posthumous release, the lyrics of which seem to suggest his moving on from his drug addiction to a new man, and even mentions suicide:

    • #7
  8. Jules PA Inactive
    Jules PA
    @JulesPA

    main feed, bravo.

    • #8
  9. Garret Hobart Inactive
    Garret Hobart
    @GarretHobart

    I discovered Elliott Smith late and loved everything I heard, but then didn’t listen to anything of his for several years.  When I later found out the circumstances surrounding his death, I went back and relistened to his work.  Listening through the prism of his suicide made every song chilling, to the point where I had a hard time getting through the whole playlist.

    Such an awful tragedy.

    • #9
  10. Brandon Beckstrom Inactive
    Brandon Beckstrom
    @BrandonBeckstrom

    Covering “Thirteen” by Big Star

    • #10
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