Matthew Lemay - Elliott Smiths XO

XO

Praise for the series:

It was only a matter of time before a clever publisher realized that there is an audience for whom Exile on Main Street or Electric Ladyland are as significant and worthy of study as The Catcher in the Rye or Middlemarch. The series is freewheeling and eclectic, ranging from minute rock-geek analysis to idiosyncratic personal celebrationThe New York Times Book Review

Ideal for the rock geek who thinks liner notes just arent enough Rolling Stone

One of the coolest publishing imprints on the planet Bookslut

These are for the insane collectors out there who appreciate fantastic design, well-executed thinking, and things that make your house look cool. Each volume in this series takes a seminal album and breaks it down in startling minutiae. We love these. We are huge nerds Vice

A brilliant series each one a work of real love NME (UK)

Passionate, obsessive, and smart Nylon

Religious tracts for the rock n roll faithful Boldtype

[A] consistently excellent series Uncut (UK)

We arent naive enough to think that were your only source for reading about music (but if we had our way watch out). For those of you who really like to know everything there is to know about an album, youd do well to check out Continuums 33 1/3 series of books Pitchfork

For reviews of individual titles in the series, please visit our website at www.continuumbooks.com and 33third.blogspot.com

For more information on the 33 1/3 series,
visit 33third.blogspot.com.

For a complete list of books in the series,
see the back of this book.

Matthew LeMay

2010

The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc
80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038

The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX

www.continuumbooks.com
33third.blogspot.com

Copyright 2009 by Matthew LeMay

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers or their agents.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
LeMay, Matthew.
XO / by Matthew LeMay.
p. cm. - (33 1/3)
Includes bibliographical references.
eISBN-13: 978-1-4411-6009-6
1. Smith, Elliott, 1969-2003. XO. I. Title. II. Series.

ML420.S668L46 2009
782.42166092-dc22

2009006651

Thank you Philip Fischer for your help, guidance, and insight. This book would not exist without you.

Thank you Larry Crane, Greg Di Gesu, Garrick Duckler, and Rob Schnapf for taking the time to speak with me.

And finally, thank you mom for your love and support.

Like many of his fans, I first encountered Elliott Smith when he performed Miss Misery at the Academy Awards ceremony on March 13, 1998. I was fourteen years old, and watching the Oscars with my parents had become a family ritual-by-defaultnot because of any particular interest in film, but rather because it was a rare chance for us all to share opinions on a subject where our spheres of cultural knowledge had some degree of overlap. I had never heard Elliott Smiths music before, but the sound of his name rang a vague, elusive note of recollection; I had heard of this guy before, but I couldnt place the name. As the camera focused in on a man standing uncomfortably in a white Prada suit, the significance of Smiths name suddenly returned to me. I turned to my parents and said, Oh, this is Elliott Smithnow hes on the Oscars and hes gonna be really famous, but he used to be this homeless junky who did HEROIN! My father, whose cynicism was nectar to my junior-high mindset, let out a forced laugh and deadpanned, you can tell.

Ive listened to Miss Misery hundreds of times since then, and its come to be one of my favorite Elliott Smith songs. As pop music goes, it is fairly undeniable; a strong melody, a great structural arc, unobtrusively clever and emotionally evocative lyrics. But the song I now know and love has no resemblance to the song I remember hearing during the Academy Awards. While it took a visit to YouTube for me to remember the visual component of Smiths performance, I have a distinct recollection of the song itselfor, rather, of a musical corollary to Smiths sad sack reputation. I couldnt even say where I had heard about Smith in the first place; likely a newspaper or a brief story on MTV or VH1. But my understanding of Elliott Smith not only colored my experience of his songit effectively created a new song; a harsh, self-indulgent, and near-unlistenable ditty that lived in my memory and was almost impossible for me to shake.

It would be easy to write off my initial contact with Smith as a product of its particular time and context, or of my own immaturity. But even as I matured and Smiths musical vocabulary expanded, I could not seem to get past my own illusory reading of Miss Misery. As a musically ravenous high school student aware of Smiths reputation as a songwriter, I purchased XO in 1999, but never got into the record beyond a passing interest in its first single, Waltz #2. I saw Smith at the Beacon Theater in 2001, and was taken aback by the professionalism and energy of his performance, but not enough so to spark any further interest in his recorded output. Later that year, I purchased Domino Records box set of Smiths early work, primarily in an effort to win the affections of a girl whose AIM screen name was a combination of her given name and the letters ESG (Elliott Smith Girl). For a time, I listened obsessively to a CD by Smiths friends and collaborators Quasibut I still felt an insurmountable distance between myself and any music that bore the name Elliott Smith.

It was only when writing my bands second record in late 2005 that I truly began to bridge that distance. As a fledgling songwriter terrified of taking my lyrics too seriously, I had been writing exclusively from some semblance of personal experience. But I was interested in the idea of using songs to literalize emotional observations; as a chance to say things via fictionalized characters that could never be said in person. In a conversation with a friend and bandmate, who grew up in Portland and was very familiar with Smiths music, XO came up as a record that does just thatan album that is unflinchingly harsh and emotionally direct, to the point of being difficult to listen to at times. For fear of looking stupid, I said yeahwe had discussed Smiths music in the past, and I wasnt ready to admit just how limited my interest.actually was. But the conversation intrigued mehow could Elliott Smith, the poster boy for wallowing, mopey self-loathing, make a record that is unsparing, incisive, and mean?

With that conversation in mind, I began reevaluating Smiths music, particularly XO. The ensuing process was gradual, but revelatory. Lines that had passed by suddenly stood out; characters that once seemed little more than one-dimensional projections of Smith himself were populated by fraught and contradictory emotions. The music itself grew richer and more complex, suddenly bursting with nuance, intelligence, and humor. Of