Elliott Smith - Either/Or POLL (+ 20th anniversary reissue news)

Great news about the reissue!

I'm leaning towards Rose Parade, with Pictures of Me and Angeles as runners up, but classic album overall obviously. (Punch and Judy being one of the very few Elliott songs I could do without though)

"Punch and Judy" is one of the 4 i couldn't decide between

either/or was always my favorite elliott smith album. i guess it's sacrilege in some quarters but "say yes" is the one i can do without. i loved it to death in high school, though.

it's always interesting looking at the spotify stats for albums like this. most of the songs hover around 1-2 million listens. but "between the bars" has 28 million (and another 17 million for "say yes"). was it on a soundtrack or something? it's a great song but i never thought it was some world destroying album highlight.

"Say Yes" is one of the 4 I couldn't decide between :D

and the other 2 are "Alameda" and "Big Nothing"

i would be a liar if i just voted for one of them probably

@Karl - a lot of his songs were featured prominently in Good Will Hunting and on the soundtrack. iirc, Between the Bars, Angeles, Say Yes, No Name #3, and Miss Misery are all on there.

ah, that makes sense - i knew he was on the good will hunting soundtrack, but i thought it was just "Miss Misery"

i'm sad now and i still can't decide, got it down to "Big Nothing" or "Punch and Judy" or "Angeles"

Angeles for me easily. absolutely incredible guitar playing, there was a recent p4k piece about Pacific Northwest artists and I loved that bit describing Smith "playing the guitar like a harp."

i ought to listen to this again but 'between the bars' was always my favorite Back In The Day

there are some nice exotica influenced interpretations of ES songs done with vibes, marimba, xylophone and bells on the latest Mike Dillon album, just saying like.

thanks for the heads up! will definitely check that out...

Smith was an amazing composer, there was a great discussion on r/musictheory about his work last month: https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/comments/5i49ui/can_we_discuss_the_music_of_elliott_smith/

i'm totally obsessed with this stuff. fascinated how his songs lack a tonal center and how he often uses chromaticism

i was a huge fan of elliott smith, especially this album, when i was 20 or so but i find him excruciatingly painful to listen to now, not in like an embarrassing way bc i was young, but more that the music just feels too emotionally charged for me, i was depressed when i listened to him the most and involved in some bitter relationship episodes at the time, i think that tied up w/ smith's own story of addiction makes this music really hard for to revisit. just something that was a part of my life that i am content to not really go back to. idk. xiu xiu is similar.

that said "alameda", "between the bars", or "angeles"

wish they'd slip out the soundtrack version of Miss Misery on something

also what marcos said; these albums meant a huge amount to me when I was 25...but I have a hard time listening to them now and have since the death.

Same boat. I don't revisit these often because I connected with them almost too deeply when I was young.

Odd story: I was walking home one night in college around 2:45 a.m. when a stranger assaulted me. I took a nasty sucker punch to the face. Then I listened to that song shortly after and got seriously creeped out by how specific it seemed to my situation.

(Punch and Judy being one of the very few Elliott songs I could do without though)

I think it is not only the best song on the album, but perhaps his finest ever song. The chord changes in the chorus are just sensational.

just listening to solo "I Figured You Out" for the first time, and holy shit. can't believe this has been collecting dust somewhere for 20 years

Its got to be Alameda for me. Love that song. I lived inside it for a year or so.

Some great news and links in this thread.

I'm relistening to the whole album now just in case I suddenly hear something in a new and unexpected light, but I doubt anything will surpass Angeles for me. I think Needle in the Hay was the first ES song I ever heard (via Royal Tenenbaums) and I'd listened to a few others too, but it I wasn't until about seven years ago when I put Angeles on a mix CD for the bookshop I was working in that his unbelievable talent really hit home. How can you even compose something that insanely intricate? I remember seeing a video with him commenting on how difficult it is to play. I can never manage to remember more than the first couple of bars.

Between the Bars for me

Really, really psyched that "My New Freedom" is getting an official release, even if it's only a live recording. I only heard this song a few months ago, it's so incredible...
this is the best recording/performance imo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrtdazkYzSU

and here's a video, same performance that the soundboard reissue uses:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ANo9Kf_lYE

On Between the Bars: adding to the high play count might also be that it was covered by loads of artists.

Everyone picking different faves already makes this poll a succes imho. I can totally see how some people can barely listen to Elliott nowadays when 20 years ago it was the world, but not me. It is infinitely layered and ever tugging at my heart strings. It is music I literally cannot do without.

i too got into his music after a breakup, right around the 10th anniversary of his death. the p4k oral history made me a superfan (imo it's one of the best things they've ever published). works so well as emotional balm, and i took a break from him about 2 years ago when I was generally happier and healthier. but I've started listening to him again in the last year, and the thing that keeps me fascinating are his incredible skills as a composer and player. his chord vocabulary is just ridiculous

Keep meaning to check out that oral history - I've had a tab of it open since you posted it months back.

I make a point of listening to every album at least once a year so that they don't become too timestamped with difficult emotional energy. And because I can't go more than a couple of months without suddenly having an urgent need to listen to him.

Vitamin String Quartet did a sweet little cover of Between the Bars iirc. It is unusual how it's become his most 'famous' song since it's by no means the most accessible, but maybe that's just further testament to his quiet power.

"Between the Bars" is my honest pick.

(Punch and Judy being one of the very few Elliott songs I could do without though)

I think it is not only the best song on the album, but perhaps his finest ever song. The chord changes in the chorus are just sensational.

― Freedom, Wednesday, January 4, 2017 8:36 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

God yes, the chords in this are so brilliant and deep and you can play them all – and the guitar solo – with just an acoustic guitar. I often think that there were these hyper-compressed single-guitar arrangements of Elliott songs that he played live that were those songs' platonic forms, and yet they didn't really miss much from the studio recordings. (I like both versions of the songs nonetheless.)

P+J is one of many favourites, and yet still I don't know what to pick here. I feel drawn to giving something to a non "big one" (Say Yes, Angeles, Between The Bars) but my god aren't they all such unrelentingly brilliant and beautiful songs.

realise that play chords with an acoustic guitar is not a challenge in the way I phrased that opening sentence.

OK let's see then

(tt was playing this the other day and it sounded good, but my commute should provide a closer listen)

"Angeles" easy, for reasons already mentioned.

Juliana Hatfield's "Needle in the Hay" on the tribute album is SO good

The thing about this music is that it sounds like death wrapping itself around me more than almost any metal or extreme music I've heard. It's obviously really great but fairly devastating and spirit-draining to listen to. (I wonder if there's any Elliott-Smith-inspired black/doom metal.) But then I'd imagine this music also provides solace to those already caught in a vice - it goes down to those places and provides haunted company.

ES does seem to act as a balm if you're already at a low ebb. I would guess that a lot of people who are drawn to him arrive through emotional resonances with their own lives, and in that place it's an almost comforting, world-confirming sort of deathliness that is offset and made hopeful through the excruciating prettiness of the music. Shouldn't generalise, but for me at least it is like an exit route out of wallowing - it is one of few impermeable goodnesses that I can rely on when nothing else is working.

Also, I would love to hear Elliott Smith metal. Also, there's this:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/70/17/1f/70171f1089867b7c07e92e1fb5c771e6.jpg

What was your favourite track?

Probably No Name #5 in the end. Elegant and lovely but with a note of redemption. Cupid's Trick almost had me but it was too obviously the upbeat respite

it is one of few impermeable goodnesses that I can rely on when nothing else is working.

More otm you could not be, tt. This is exactly how it is for me, too.

wow. this was the soundtrack to my freshers year. got a very sweet spot for most of these songs. the girl i liked at the time was a huge fan of Between the Bars. Think I'll go for Say Yes.

Angeles.

On another day I could easily have gone with Alameda or Between The Bars though but I played it last night and that was the one that just hit home. This and XO were the last mopey bedroom balladeer records I felt I really NEEDED in my life. Maybe it's to do with general life stages but I'm pretty sure this stuff is still just better than a lot of of similar acts who came later.

i wish the s/t had the slightly elevated production values of Either/Or. that might be my favorite record of his other than From a Basement, but I'd rather listen to live versions than the record just because the quality is so shit.

lol they should issue all new uni students with a copy of this, Grace and Pink Moon with a note that says 'Freshers Starter Pack - thus should be all you need for a while'

great bit from the p4k oral history:

ROB SCHNAPF: We recorded “Between the Bars”, “Angeles”, and “Say Yes” at [Schnapf and Rothrock’s Humboldt County, California, studio] the Shop. He would record one live take of vocal and guitar together, and then he would just double to it once we got it. It was just absurd. The guitar stuff isn’t even easy. It was ridiculous that he was able to just nail a vocal and guitar performance live, and he was able to double it live again. I mean, it’s not like he’s strumming G, C, D. There’s intricate little fills. It sounds so natural, and so simple—then you try to play it. And sing at the same time. He was just really good. Understated, but really good.

I loved "Angeles". I was excited to be able to record it. We took that one organ note, which he had previously recorded, and looped it. It’s that one pedal tone, and it really felt like… something. I don’t always try to operate on the intellectual level; I like to keep it in the land of feelings and then think about it afterwards if I need to. Recording “Angeles” was a good feeling.

LUKE WOOD [DreamWorks A&R]: The most available example of Elliott's skill as a writer, and his way with metaphor, is probably "Between the Bars". It works on three layers. It's about love, at first, or it seems to be; you could look at it literally, being about going out for a night out at the bars; the imagery could easily be about prison; and, of course, it's potentially about addiction. The clarity and continuity of thought is amazing—he can take a metaphor like that and sing about it for three minutes and never leave.

walk down alameda

voted for "Big Nothing" because nobody else seems to be

"All spit and spite, you're up all night and down every day
A tired man with only hours to go just waiting to be taken away"

Love Ballad of Big Nothing. He sounds very restrained, trying to keep himself in line, but it's like you can hear how on edge he is, how he means what he sings and is this close from going fuck it and just belt out the lyrics.

he speaks to me, lol

i'm that man at times tbh

i'm gonna have to listen to this album today

i haven't listened to it in several years. not because i don't like it, deep down, but that at some point i guess i must have felt, i dunno, embarrassed for liking it or something? like it was a childish thing i should have left behind along with dying my hair funny colours and wearing trousers about 5x too big for me. DGAF nowadays of course.

Quasi's 'Field Studies' is another really good accompaniment to this album

From a Basement on the Hill is his crowning achievement imo, and even in its unfinished state, it towers over everything else he did. the most moving album about drug abuse and depression I've ever heard. anyone else prefer it?

I'm confident that yours is a minority opinion, but there's still some good stuff on there, for sure.

Even though he was consistently a disaster live during the period it was recorded, the playing and arrangements and compositions on Basement are incredible, an enormous leap forward from Figure 8, which feels phoned in and uninspired in comparison (save for the acoustic based tracks - Easy Way Out, I Better Be Quiet Now, Happiness, Somebody That I Used to Know)... even the playing & singing in this video taken during the depths of his addiction is stunning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5SFyBKybJM

tho he does fuck up and abandon the ending

i don't think basement is an enormous leap forward from figure 8, they very much exist in the same sound world

Hard to pin an unfinished album as his crowning achievement, but there's absolutely tons of great stuff from that era – though a lot of the songs had existed for years.

His live playing around 1999 – the Satyricon gig sticks out to me from boots – is absolutely fucking phenomenal.

the film's great isn't it? i was never a huge fan but i saw him in 98 and liked him plenty, this made me like him more. the atmosphere it creates around that whole lovely era where it's snowing and he's in Portland and he's in Heat Miser and just before he got too big. it puts some much better known rock docs to shame.

i def play basement and this one the most.

Alameda.

it's weirdly comforting to see how so many people are affected in the same way by Elliott Smith - periods where you listen to nothing but his music, and then having to take an extended break afterwards because it was getting too much.

That was definitely the case for me, too - devoured his music at the start of major depression in my late teens, followed by nearly a decade of never listening to him at all. I've only started putting on his records again in the past couple of years or so - it's easier to appreciate his songcraft now, without thinking or feeling as much as I did before.

I would love DreamWorks (is that still a label?) to do a New Moon type set of his material from XO to Basement. Seems like there's plenty of great unreleased material from that era. Supposedly an entire album recorded with Jon Brion as well. Not sure if he ever cut vocals for it.

some of the songs he recorded with Brion ended up on Basement, iirc they were "Twilight," "A Passing Feeling," and "A Fond Farewell." Another one from those sessions, "True Love," ended up on the Heaven Adores You soundtrack last year.

Are the versions of those tunes from the Brion sessions or re-recordings of the same tunes? Lots of great b-sides from his DreamWorks days too.

they're recordings from the Brion sessions. "Twilight" and "A Passing Feeling" were completed with Brion, while the basic tracking for "A Fond Farewell" was used, with vocals and overdubs added later on. It's wild how long the recording sessions for Basement were spread out- "Memory Lane" was recorded in October 2003, and the vocals for "King's Crossing" were recorded a week before he died.

Elliott died in October of 2003. I think sessions started with Brion in 2001.

i know, i was talking about how all the different sessions - with McConnell and Fritz and Brion - were spread out over such a long period of time, up until the weeks before he died.

O gotcha. It's a fascinating album I only wish we could hear it as he had intended. Basement is Elliott's White Album.

this is a breakdown of where/when everything was recorded:

1. Coast to Coast - 2002, McConnell
2. Let's Get Lost - Summer 2003, Fritz
3. Pretty (Ugly Before) - May 2000, self-produced
4. Don't Go Down - 2001, McConnell
5. Strung Out Again - 2001, McConnell
6. A Fond Farewell - early 2001 & 2002, Brion/McConnell
7. King's Crossing - 2003, Fritz
8. Ostrich & Chirping - 2001, McConnell (Smith had nothing to do with this)
9. Twilight - early 2001, Brion
10. A Passing Feeling - early 2001, Brion
11. The Last Hour - 1996, Crane
12. Shooting Star 2001, McConnell
13. Memory Lane - 2003, Fritz
14. Little One - 2001, McConnell
15. A Distorted Reality Is Now a Necessity to Be Free - 2003, Fritz

xp yeah it's a drag, I'm glad it's something like 70% complete at least. reading the visions and ideas McConnell and ES had for it is a real drag, would've been great...

it also sucks that McConnell wasn't consulted after Smith's death when the album was being sequenced & mixed, probably because they did drugs together while they were recording (there's a bit in the book Elliott Smith and the Big Nothing where McConnell talks about mixing Shooting Star totally coked out).

Flappy, did you just write up that recording list from memory? If so, I salute you my friend.

New Moon is a record I revisit so so often. Feel it's overlooked a bit, so many great songs on there.

thanks! p much from memory, had to double check Don't Go Down. this is a great source btw for sessions histories: http://www.sweetaddy.com

That is a great source, yes (but the compliment still stands)

Agree that someone (Dreamworks?) could do an excellent compilation of all the various bits and pieces worked into the FABOTH sessions - stuff like Stickman, True Love, See You In Heaven, O So Slow, Assassin, Let's Turn The Record Over, Abused ... piles of stuff still around but unofficial.

the people that made the Heaven Adores You movie had a real opportunity to do something like that, and imo the soundtrack was a serious letdown. if they had access and permission to release "True Love," which is from the Dreamworks years/Brion sessions, why did they pad the rest of the thing with songs taken straight off of already released albums? "LA," "Everything Means Nothing to Me," "Happiness," and "Son of Sam" are all already widely available on his records. And I hate that "The Last Hour" is listed as an early/alternate version, but it's exactly the same take that was put on Basement. What a waste of space. I'm pretty sure the family put the kibosh on releasing "Abused" and "Suicide Machine" back when Basement was compiled, but I don't know why they didn't include stuff like "Everything's Okay" or "Stickman." Actually, "See You in Heaven" would've been perfect for a soundtrack, given that it's an instrumental.

I mean, this Dreamworks era compilation already exists as a multi-disc bootleg called Grand Mal, y'all should check it out if you haven't, it's all over YouTube...

Hey I know this is my 3rd post in this thread about the same song. Someone mentioned to me that "Everybody Has It" was possibly written by Tony Lash and not Elliott. Was wondering if anyone can confirm/deny.

tried looking up its BMI registry, came up blank. Did a little digging and it seems like Tony wrote it.

Wow, that band really did have compatible songwriters.

sweet interview with Larry Crane about building Jackpot! with Elliott, recording with him, and remastering/compiling the materials for the Either/Or reissue. https://www.fretboardjournal.com/podcast/podcast-132-recording-engineer-larry-crane-elliott-smith/

Just listened through XO for the first time in many years. To my shame had pretty much forgotten about the existence of Oh Well, Okay though I bet I could still play it on guitar if I sat down to it.

By comparison to either/or it seems much more like a collection of stuff he got recorded while he had access to a studio, an album in the truest sense of the word, whereas either/or feels very much like you're visiting the same psychic and sonic space on every track.

Watched Heaven Adores You again and realised there's a version of King's Crossing from one of the Murder Of Crows tapes played in the background early in the film, which I missed the first time around. He kept that tune a loooong time.

Flappy you have a wealth of knowledge on all things Elliott and I completely agree with your opinion of the Heaven Adores You soundtrack. While some of Elliott's earliest recordings are interesting as a curiosity there's so many unreleased and just straight up obscure tunes in the archives that they didn't touch. I can only hope that DreamWorks said ok to a track or two, but are waiting to do reissue's of XO and Figure 8 or just compiling a New Moon type collection of their own.

Hey flaps do you know anything about the song True Love, like when it was written and recorded?

This song finally jumped out at me today, and wow it's fantastic. Both lyrics and arrangement. This has happened separately with what, literally almost 100 songs now since his death, and that's not including FABOTH and New Moon! It's just mindblowing. This guy will always be my favorite.

"true love is a rose behind glass" this guy and his drug references
http://i.imgur.com/jDhb7Pz.jpg

True Love was recorded and completed with Jon Brion in early 2001. Elliott showed up with the song on a two-inch reel the night he got to Dave McConnell's studio, great anecdote here from the p4k oral history:

When he showed up, it was around 2 a.m., and he was in two cars; his girlfriend [Valerie Deerin] was driving one car and he was driving the other car, and both cars were full of all of his belongings. I mean everything from his apartment. I was thinking he was gonna show up with a suitcase and a backpack and a couple of guitars, but it was like five guitars, a giant keyboard, amps, and then five suitcases of clothes. He had toys, books, you name it. And then he had medication, and various other things.

He also brought all his his two-inch reels that he was working on at Jon’s house. So we drank a couple of beers and I gave him the tour of the place and everything, and then he goes, "OK, there’s a song on here that I recorded by myself at Jon’s place that I want to keep, that I really like. Why don’t you just mix this song for me and I’ll be back in the morning.” Then he left. He was like, "I’ve got some errands to run right now, I’ve got some stuff I gotta do.” Remember, this is 2 a.m.—well no, by now it’s 4 a.m., because we had talked about my philosophy on recording and producing for two hours.

So I put the reel on the machine and I started listening to the song, just by myself. And the first time I heard it, just pushing up the faders so I could hear the different instruments and his voice, I got the chills. It was one of the most haunting, beautiful songs I’d ever heard. It sounded nothing like the music I’d heard him do before. It sounded way more intricate, way more complex.

It reminded me of Rachmaninoff, but with lyrics, with a story. Sitting in there alone, I almost had an out-of-body experience because I knew that I was about to work on one of the best things I’d ever worked on in my life. So I spent the next three or four hours mixing the song, which was called "True Love Is a Rose". It's a shame because that song never ended up on the album. He wanted it to be on the album, it was one of his favorites.

So he finally got back, listened to my mix, loved it, and then he says, "Let’s start recording another song." At this point he probably hasn’t slept in two days.

imo "True Love is a Rose" is a much better title, I assume Elliott abbreviated it at some point before he died (sort of like how "A Fond Farewell" was called "A Dying Man in a Living Room" for a while).

I don't know why it wasn't included on FABOTH - couldn't have been the grim drug content, or that it was from the Brion sessions (Twilight was also completed with him). Amazing song, pretty remarkable that his abilities as a songwriter, lyricist, and recording artist accelerated along with his drug abuse, even if he was a fucking mess live. Dunno how he was able to record these incredibly complicated and intricate songs - all by himself, every instrument - while being a total butterfingers live, even in 2003 as he was getting better.

wow. thanks. gotta read that p4k thing, haven't got around to it yet.

did this motherfucker write a GOOD song EVERY DAY? it's just stupid

new old interview uploaded the other day, from 9/16/96

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYgspts1c6c

sweet video of Angeles & Coming Up Roses- the cover of Either/Or was taken backstage at this show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKDYeWzk5-c

arrgh if the camera were just a little to the left so we could see his fingers...

also, that Bocephus shirt would be the ultimate piece of ES memorabilia, wonder if it's out there somewhere

this one's a bit better:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzHsRMAz348

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

The whole of that show from Tempe (supporting Sebadoh) where the cover of either/or was shot is also on YouTube, from the other angle, albeit in slightly poorer quality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBFvlYn6PhU

After much careful deliberation, I went with "Say Yes," which is the first Elliott Smith song I ever heard

yesterday i read an interview between elliott and mary lou lord from early 1998, and elliott said he wrote Say Yes and Between the Bars in one sitting while watching Xena: Warrior Princess with the sound off 😳

i would like to ask elliott in what way does "i figured you out" sound like the eagles. love that song. mll does alright by it.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

All songs accounted for. Marvelous, as it should be.

I had a moment where I thought I should have made sure 2:45 got one, but I'm glad someone was on it.