Deep Album Cuts Vol. 280: Elliott Smith
Next week will mark 19 years since Elliott Smith died, but I don't particularly want to mark that sad occasion, I just wanted to listen to and celebrate his songs.
Elliott Smith deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):
1. Condor Ave
2. Roman Candle
3. The Biggest Lie
4. St. Ides Heaven
5. The White Lady Loves You More
6. Clementine
7. Pictures Of Me
8. Rose Parade
9. Say Yes
10. Alameda
11. Between The Bars
12. Sweet Adeline
13. Bled White
14. Oh Well, OK
15. Pitseleh
16. Independence Day
17. Somebody That I Used To Know
18. L.A.
19. Stupidity Tries
20. Wouldn't Mama Be Proud
21. Everything Means Nothing To Me
22. Twilight
23. A Distorted Reality Is Now A Necessity To Be Free
24. A Fond Farewell
Tracks 1 and 2 from Roman Candle (1994)
Tracks 3, 4, 5 and 6 from Elliott Smith (1995)
Track1 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 from Either/Or (1997)
Tracks 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 from XO (1998)
Tracks 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21 from Figure 8 (2000)
Tracks 22, 23 and 24 from From A Basement On A Hill (2004)
I don't always make these playlists chronological, but I do it when it feels like it makes sense. And I particularly love hearing this one as a microcosm of Elliott Smith's development from the hushed 4-track recordings of Roman Candle up to the polished studio craft of XO. I heard "Independence Day" at my brother's house the last time I visited him and it's remarkable how quickly Smith adapted to getting into big studios and using sounds like the drum loop on that song so well. Really a great example of how someone from the lo-fi world can just blossom when given a little more opportunity and a bigger budget.
I really thought about starting the playlist off with some Heatmiser songs, because I really put Mic City Sons up there with Elliott Smith's best solo records, but it just felt like a little too much of a stylistic stretch. Seeing the video for Heatmiser's "Plaineclothes Man" on MTV2 was really my introduction to his music. But I didn't really take notice of him until all the press about the Good Will Hunting soundtrack and the Oscar nom. My friend Stephen Edge put some songs on a mixtape for me, three from Either/Or and three from XO. "Pictures of Me" and "Bled White" were the songs that initially hooked me, and from there I dove in and really love those albums.
I got to see Elliott Smith live one time, at the Recher Theatre in Towson on the Figure 8 tour, and it was an amazing show, which ended surprisingly with a faithful cover of "(Don't Fear) The Reaper." A few months later, I spent the summer of 2001 living with my friend Scott Streat in Newark, Delaware. At the height of the Jade Tree era, Newark/Wilmington was kind of a hip indie rock place to be, but it still totally surprised me when Scott came home the day of the Newark Day parade and told me how he ran into Elliott Smith and struck up a brief conversation with him. In my mind now "Rose Parade" always makes me think of that day, Elliott Smith just randomly turning up the day of a parade in that little college town. I also thought of "Alameda" a lot when I drove up The Alameda in Baltimore almost every day for a couple years. So many of these songs just live in my head permanently.
Of course, the next couple years were full of concerning stories about Elliott Smith struggling through solo shows, and then, finally, the horrifying news of his death. Some friends of mine put on a tribute concert at the Ottobar in Baltimore and it felt good to hear some covers of those songs and have a communal sort of mourning that I haven't really had with many other artists who died young. His songs were so beautiful and intimate and it always felt sort of effortless how people passed his music from one person to another, from Stephen to me and from me to countless friends. It feels a little silly to do a 'deep cuts' playlist for an album artist and include many of his top streaming songs like "Between The Bars," but hey, no singles like "Miss Misery" or "Waltz #2." I was a little disappointed that Smith's second posthumous album, 2007's New Moon, isn't on streaming services, I bought that on CD when it came out and there's some good stuff on there. But From A Basement On A Hill is a hell of a record. I heard "A Fond Farewell" on WTMD last week, right after I had put it on this playlist, which really surprised me because I don't think I had heard that song in years before that.
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