A lot has been said about Elliott Smith’s last album, ‘From A Basement On The Hill’, that it was a suicide album, that it was not, that the family had intentionally censored some of the too-obvious-entitled songs, like ‘Suicide machine’ or ‘Abused’, although if you really listen to the lyrics of the songs, you would see it is not about killing yourself at all!
The problem I have with most people is that they never go much deeper than the surface and the appearance of things, they take everything at the first degree and never make the effort to understand things in depth.
One of the songs which features on this last and posthumous album and has been the most categorized as a suicide song, is ‘King’s Crossing’. Sure the song is dark, dramatic and serious, sure it is a struggle between Elliott and record industry (‘The method acting that pays my bills/Keeps the fat man feeding in Beverly Hills’ or ‘The judge is on vinyl, decisions are final’), or an epic battle between Elliott and Elliott (‘It don't matter because I have no sex life/All I want to do now is inject my ex-wife’), or whatever the song means for you, but for god’s sake the song was first played live, with lyrics nearly identical to the album version, in October 1999, so 4 years before he died…. But still people are calling it a suicide note.
The song actually starts with very indistinct spoken lyrics that seem to come from different voices, speaking about ‘brother’, ‘wolfman’, ‘white man’ and ‘hell’, and then continues with some rather bombastic arrangements of piano, vocals and guitar, it’s a furious tempest which builds up a dramatic mood that bursts over and over with angry vocals, calming down at the end.
All the drug references in the song have nothing to do with his own addiction since he was not taking any drugs at that time, many people could confirm this. But the myth will persist forever,… Although Elliott had written this song years ago, he curiously recorded it for good just after he had been through drug hell and unfortunately only a few days before his death. So of course people are drawing hasty conclusions, for these same reasons, they don’t look very far…
There is a figure of writing called metaphor that apparently goes over the head of many people, but that Elliott was using a lot in his lyrics, drug addiction being one of his common metaphors for relationships and other life ‘addictions’.
So yeah ‘inject my ex-wife’, ‘the needles on the tree’, ‘a skinny Santa is bringing something to me’, ‘his speech is slurred’, ‘I’m going on a date with a rich white lady’ are there on purpose to make you think about drugs, but you could find in the song as many references to religious and mythological items than to drugs: ‘Christmas time’, ‘Falling down like an omen’, ‘white lady’, and even ‘King’s crossing’, which has always been mysterious,.. a possible reference to the king of king on the cross? Or to a crossing , a change, could it be the crossing of the river Styx river? After all there is enough death references to imagine something like this.
Elliott was extremely well read and his songs are full of complex literary innuendos, which lose all their magic when they are explained the way I am doing it right now…
Most people take literally the line ‘I can’t prepare for death any more that I already have’… ‘it speaks for itself’ as some say,… oh really? But aren’t we all preparing for death because life is a game, a shell game as Conor Oberst would say, who may have been aware of Smith's lyrics: ‘All you can do now is watch the shells/The game looks easy, that's why it sells’…. Ha, so close to ‘No, I don't want to play/It's a shell game, it's a shell game’, and I could go on with this Bright Eyes’ song as ‘My private life is an inside joke’ could mirror ‘It don't matter because I have no sex life’ in King’s crossing, but I digress…
Sure the song is dark and could be about death, could be about dying, may be dying of not being able to produce the music he wanted, … there are this judge on vinyl and this fat man in Beverly Hills, but the end of the song is a complete U turn with the ‘time reverses’, ‘Dead men talk to all the pretty nurses/Instruments shine on a silver tray’, like a light at the end of the tunnel, like a survivor on a hospital bed after a long battle.
It is just really bizarre that Elliott’s life became the fulfillment of his own myth,… it just does not help his after-life.
All the following songs were probably written at the same period that the self-titled album ‘Elliott Smith’ and some of them were posthumously released on ‘New Moon’ in 2007.
In fact, Larry Crane remixed several of these tracks (‘Angel in the snow’, ‘Big decision’, ‘Georgia, Georgia’, ‘High Times’, ‘Riot coming’, ‘Whatever, Some Folk Song in C’) to include them on the New Moon collection. Regarding ‘Talking To Mary’, Larry Crane was unable to find the reel containing this song, and so included Elliott's rough mix of the song on New Moon.
Angel in the snow:
The beautiful, haunting and peaceful melody evokes despair and coldness in a relationship. All the imagery is related to winter, the ‘snow’, the ‘cold still life’, ‘a frozen still life’, you could almost see leaves ‘that fell down’. There is hopelessness, fear of love or failure in a relationship, with the admittance that there is only inadequacy when close to the loved person.
Of course, as usual when talking about relationship with Elliott, there is a possible evocation of drug, as snow is a street name of coke, and the ‘angel in the snow’ becomes similar to ‘the white lady’ of another song. The loved one is an angel in the snow, certainly cold, possibly dead?
The same imagery is used again in another song ‘Clementine’ with the line ‘Made an angel in the snow/Anything to pass the time’.
This song was first given to ‘Yeti Zine’ a magazine based in Portland, and Elliott’s mix figures in issue 1 (2000).
Big decision:
A surprisingly very fast song, with a menacing feeling due to the rapid guitar riff throughout the song. There is a lot of fear as if the person wanted to escape someone else’s power ‘I'm under your spell, can't you tell?’. The vocabulary of addiction is again there ‘You can't kick when you're down’, ‘Ain't nothing going to shake it off’ and the character of the song has to take a big decision (put an end to his addiction). It is as if the nervous rhythm of the song was made to shake off someone from an addiction.
Elliott’s mix of this song was given to the ‘Slice of Lemon’ compilation, and released in 1995.
Crazy Fucker:
An unreleased song with a pretty melody and some devastating lyrics such as ‘Bleeding fortified wine out of the injury that I call my mouth’. The ‘crazy fucker from the south’ seems to be once again his stepfather as he said in a live recording it was ‘another standard folk song’, referring to the storytelling aspect of folk songs. There is a lot of trouble as he wants ‘to insult some crazy fucker’ because he has ‘got an headache’ and is ‘already full of useless stories’.
Georgia, Georgia:
An angry song once again, whose melody is reminiscent of the sad and hopeless ones from ‘Roman Candle’; it evokes the South using what could be female names (Georgia, Savannah) may be a little as ‘Southern Belle’ does on the self-titled album, although the lyrics of 'Georgia, Georgia' are more cryptic. Many reviews of ‘New Moon’ jumped on the line ‘Oh man, what a plan, suicide’, and linked it to Elliott’s death: sure the atmosphere of the song is dark, and the context is related to self-destruction by alcohol and depression (‘With your veins all full of beer’), but the line seems completely ironic, as if he was saying suicide was really a poor and stupid way to plan the future.
High Times:
An intense song that could remind ‘Needle in the Hay’; it starts slowly whereas the melody builds up little by little to explode with ‘High times’ repeated loudly and angrily several times, and then calming down with ‘I don't go where I'm supposed to go’. The title and many words of the song make reference to drug or alcohol addiction ‘High times’, ‘Coma kid’, ‘until he kicked out in reverse’, but more than everything else they express the desire to get isolated, alienated from the world:
‘I'm so sick and tired trying to change your mind/When it's so easy to disconnect mine/High times’ or ‘Don't pick me up/I'm fine right where I am’
It is very reminiscent of some of ‘St. Ides Heaven’ lines, which were declaring his will to break up with others:
‘High on amphetamines/The moon is a light bulb breaking/It'll go around with anyone/But it won't come down for anyone’
Before the release of ‘New Moon’, the song was released as Sean Croghan's cover version, on the tribute album ‘To: Elliott, From: Portland’.
Riot Coming
Although at one time, Elliott referred to this song as ‘Sons Into Daughters’, its final title is ‘Riot Coming’.
Despite the melody, there is a lot of fear of hidden dangers (‘drug in the water’), a lot of violence and anxiety in this song, and if we never know why there is a riot coming or where it comes from, the built-up atmosphere seems to show that the riot is rising inside himself and will eventually explode with lines like:
‘In Storyville I fucked up a cop’, ‘That brought my heart to a stop’, ‘A punch in the stomach’, Sat down in jail with this friend of mine/Who'd never close both his eyes/But one was shut all the time/To cover the thing he was scared of’
Some Song:
On certain recordings, he says ‘rock song’ before singing it, may be because the song has effectively a rocking tempo. It is a really sad song and probably his most obvious one concerning his childhood and the abuse he had to endure. Lines like these ones speak by themselves:
‘You're a symphony, man, with one fucking note/Charlie beat you up week after week/And when you grow up you're going to be a freak’
However, on certain versions, the line ‘Charlie beat you up’ is changed into ‘How they beat you up’ making it less direct and personal.
Dallas (where he grew up) is mentioned as well as Gacy (the serial killer), a trick Elliott will use again with 'Son of Sam' (another serial killer).
This song exists in two different recordings, one with a simple vocals and acoustic guitar arrangement, the second with a drums, bass, and organ arrangement, and both versions can be found on different singles or compilations.
Talking To Mary:
A song that could have some connections with ‘Pretty Mary K’ (on the ‘Figure 8’ album), and since this latter song was about his mother (his mother full name is Bunny Kay, Kay = K), he must have used the same first name in both songs (Mary) to talk about her.
Also the line ‘And more money down in your sock’ is close to the line ‘With some sailor’s pay shoved down in her sock’ of an early version of ‘Pretty Mary K’.
The first line evokes probably once again the relationship between his mother and stepfather ‘You know you don't have to shout/She can hear what you're thinking’, the violent climate that he had to endure during his childhood, and his hope to see his mother escape ‘One day she'll go, I told you so’
Whatever (Some Folk Song in C):
An almost happy melody, sweet and nostalgic, which seems much lighter than his other songs although it is about a relationship ending on a sour note ‘If you're all done like you said you'd be/What are you doing hanging out with me?’. It is always hard to let it go, just like any addiction, once again.