If we were trying to get a song by Elliott Smith on the UK and US Charts, what would be your best bet? Which song could actually make it? It is a tough choice, especially when you are a fan; nevertheless there are obviously some of them which are more popular and have more potential. So here is a list of ten Elliott Smith’s songs (in no particular order), which may make it:
– Waltz #2 (XO album): I have turned a lot of people to Elliott because of this song, it is catchy and it brings so much emotion through this waltz tempo. It is first a drum-driven song, then the vocals come with these heartbreaking lyrics ‘I’m never gonna know you mow, but I’m gonna love you anyhow’ that became the fans’ rallying cry after his tragic death.
– King’s Crossing: (From a Basement On The Hill album): This is an intense and heavy one, with all kinds of layers and hidden vocals in the complex mix. The ascending sound brings the song from the darkest place (I can't prepare for death any more than I already have) to the light (Instruments shine on a silver tray/Don't let me get carried away), through an explosive instrumentation at the middle of it.
– Between the Bars (Either/Or album): Before noticing how clever and meaning-layered the lyrics are, you just feel the aching fluidity of the acoustic music. It’s simply impossible not to be captivated by the haunting intricate combination between melody and lyrics.
– Angeles (Either/Or album): It is a favorite of many, just like 'Between the Bars’, this guitar picking runs through your brain and touches you in the most mysterious way, may be because it is impossible to know what the song is exactly about. Elliott said it could be about a feeling you get from a city or from a person or from a situation,… the feeling being more important than the subject.
– Say Yes (Either/Or album): People love it, may be because it sounds happier than the other ones? It has this catchy-soothing melody and always brings this melancholic smile on people’s face.
– Can’t Make a Sound (Figure 8 album): I always have thought this song had real potential for a hit song, it starts smoothly and builds up with layered instruments to finally explode into a large-screen-sound and ode to self-sufficiency with ‘Why should you want any other when you’re a world within a world’.
– Happiness (Figure 8 album): It is just a beautiful and melancholic song, which keeps its part of mystery like many others. It’s an ode to hope and potential ‘What I used to be will pass away and then you’ll see’, may be a reverie about what happiness could be.
– Miss Misery (Goodwill Haunting soundtrack): Probably Elliott’s most known song, because it was featured on Gus Van Sant's film and he performed it at the Oscars ceremony. You can argue forever about the real identity of Miss Misery, like a personified depression which becomes a metaphor for a bad relationship.
– A Distorted Reality Is Now a Necessity to Be Free (From a Basement On The Hill album): Another one of these epic and intense songs which figure on his posthumous album. The title tells it all, but you can easily get lost in the meanders of the possible meanings of the lyrics. I can’t even start with this song, it is filled with metaphors, and as psychedelically oriented as you want it to be.
– Suicide Machine (unreleased): A happy tune on a very heavy subject with angry lyrics. A song which was never released because of its ambiguous title, but which probably contains what would have been his last and definitive message? ‘Everybody’s trying to turn me into a suicide machine’
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