Within another week I got Elliott Smith & Roman Candle. Within a week I went backwards & got XO & Either Or.
I purchased it and it never came off of my CD player. A friend at work thought, given I liked Aimee Mann, that I might like Elliott Smith. I was a big fan of Aimee Mann & was binging on her newly released Magnolia & Bachelor albums. I will be joining in as soon as I catch up. After Paul McCartney I think Elliott Smith is the best songwriter of the modern era. How have I missed this thread? Thank you for starting this. Elliott stumbles a bit, but the recording has a charming hiss on it and the way he plays it there reminds me of House of the Rising Sun. Didn't even see its live debut until 98', but on the bright side, it's a pretty cool recording. I don't think it was ever played live electrically, and now that I think about it, this one was barely played acoustically either. Or maybe I'm just in a particular mood for this song tonight, either way, it's really hitting the spot right now. I feel like Good to Go always gets forgotten about, even by me, when thinking/talking about S/T, but I really think it can hold its own against the more-celebrated tracks on this album.
There's some fairly cool and complicated acoustic stuff going on in the background, the song is deceptively simple. Backing vocals here are some of my favorites on S/T, the "good to go's" are just ethereal. Anyway, the way this song flows is just so warm yet sad. Call me deaf, but I never really picked up on the electric guitar in this song, or at least never thought about it. I never noticed how much there is going on in the background of this song until I just re-listened to it for the first time in a while, it's quite beautiful.
Ides Heaven was played a few times with a full band arrangement during the Figure 8 tour, and Coomes' backing vocals add a whole other layer to the song, I'd suggest checking it out. Of course, a standout on this song is the excellent harmonies and backing vocals, which were provided by Elliott as well as Rebecca Gates of The Spinanes. There are some live versions where he substituted "I've been out haunting the neighborhood" with "being the ghost of the neighborhood", which is kind of interesting since those are basically the same thing, but somehow the line that made the final cut just feels heavier. "The moon is a lightbulb breaking/it'll go around for anyone/but it won't come down for anyone" is just such a powerful but simple way to get the image painted, I love it. Elliott really liked to use the imagery of earth's moon on this album, as this is the third song in a row with a reference. A harrowing tale and depiction of addiction, it's absolutely a highlight of S/T. Up there with some of Elliott's most powerful works. I know that's not strictly Satellite related, but I see a ton of people try to say he was way into drugs in 2003, and that is absolutely 100 percent not the case. Any slurring/sloppiness is a result of general post-addiction recovery and/or some alcohol. A lot of the 2003 shows are sometimes not as perfect as Elliott was when he hadn't been doing hard drugs, but by late 2002 Elliott was completely off of heroin and the like. Contrary to popular belief, Elliott was NOT high or on heroin during 2003. Anyway, It's a pretty cool performance, as he hadn't played that song in quite a while up to that point, as far as I'm aware. Elliott was resurrecting a lot of random songs during his final year, both in studio and live, released and unreleased. I would, however, like to highlight a neat performance from 2003 which was introduced with "This song's for Christine, I hope I don't f*** it up" in Austin, TX on May 3rd. this one was not given a full band arrangement during the Figure 8 tour. Honestly I don't think this song was played live as often as the other songs on S/T, and no. I really love the concept of this song, and it produced one of my favorite Elliott lyrics "And for all you know you’re the only one who finds it strange/When they call it a lover’s moon". There are some early live versions of this song that have the line "could you raise your hand if you'd be so polite" instead of "coming after people you watched collide", which is sort of interesting. The guitar line coming into the aforementioned picking/strumming is gorgeous and I especially love the lower notes on the guitar line, they carry the song. A very calm and pleasant track, I'm a sucker for the rhythmic style picking/strumming at the start.