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But the song also forms a barrier between the songwriter and who he once was, numbing himself to his traumatic past. Much has been made of how the “bars” of the title refer not just to taverns, but to the barrier that drinking forms between Smith and “the things you could do, you won’t but you might”. It’s a testament to Smith’s songwriting mastery that “Between The Bars” sounds like a love song – which, in a twisted sense, it is, sung from alcohol to an alcoholic.
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Sure enough, the follow-up to Either/Or would see Smith sign a new record deal and leave Portland for Los Angeles. Adding to the song’s sense of finality are the lyrics, which read like an imagined dialogue between Smith and a dubious industry head. Softly-sung vocals and fingerpicked acoustic guitar had been Smith’s modus operandi for a few years, and he’d continue to record songs this way for the rest of his life, but ‘Angeles’ feels like a peak. While “Say Yes” is the song that concludes Either/Or, it’s “Angeles” that bids farewell to the first half of Smith’s career. Like Richard Thompson’s “1952 Vincent Black Lightning,” it’s the kind of song that makes lesser guitarists want to tear their hair out in frustration and remains one of the best Elliott Smith songs. While Smith’s reputation as a brilliant lyricist is well documented, it also bears repeating that he was a phenomenal guitarist, and “Tomorrow Tomorrow” features arguably his most arresting, intricate performance. It’s one of Smith’s most unsettling songs and certainly, among his most ambitious, making you wonder what From A Basement On The Hill would have sounded like had Smith been alive to finish it. That turmoil is reflected in the music, which folds in ghostly backing vocals, hypnotic pianos and queasy guitars. Smith’s lyrics take us inside his tortured mind, where he wrestles with his worsening heroin addiction and paranoia about the music industry. “King’s Crossing” sounds like a nervous breakdown. But, oh how heart-wrenchingly beautiful this song is – as light as a balloon on a breeze. You don’t have to listen too closely to lyrics such as “So I bought mine off the street” and “All I need is a safe place to bleed” to get the sense that Smith isn’t really singing about love, but a very different kind of drug. This long-unreleased song, which finally saw the light of day on the Heaven Adores You soundtrack, isn’t as breezy as the title would have you think. But there’s no question that Smith’s newfound love of power-pop and electric guitar did nothing to dampen his knack for catchy melodies, as “Son Of Sam” demonstrates. Different from its predecessors, it needs to be met on its own terms. 19: Son Of Samįigure 8may be Smith’s toughest album: noisy and cluttered where its predecessors were hushed and spare. “We’re all in the downpour you carry around for/Trashing a lifestyle you’ve never known,” he sings. Like the Søren Kierkegaard text from which the song takes its name, Smith’s lyrics wrestle with futility – in this case, the futility of dealing with someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about. It does, however, appear on New Moon, a collection of outtakes from the mid-90s that’s as essential as any of Smith’s studio albums. The planned title track to Either/Or didn’t actually make the cut for the album, though it’s stronger than some of the songs that did. Listen to the best of Elliott Smith on Apple Music and Spotify.