New Moon by Elliott Smith.

The sky was grey and threatening to rain this morning, so I decided I wouldn’t venture out today. I was quite content to stay indoors, listen to music and write something to pass the time. I have been listening to a 2CD album that I bought recently called New Moon by Elliott Smith. I bought the album because to my shame I didn’t know anything about him, but I kept hearing his name mentioned by other people who have spoken very highly of Elliott Smith. It is a posthumous collection of 24 songs recorded between 1995-1997 and released in 2007, four years after his tragic death at the age of only 34. Apart from three tracks all the songs were previously unreleased. Often when an artist dies, and albums are released of their work they can be a mishmash of inferior songs and half-finished demo tapes. That cannot be said about this collection which are all well produced quality songs which would have been worthy additions to any Elliott Smith album. The reason for that I think is because Elliott didn’t record for any album in particular. He recorded his songs constantly when he had completed writing them. Neil Young works in the same way. I expect Neil has a vast collection of songs yet to see the light of day. 

Elliott has a connection with Laura Veirs whom I wrote about a few days ago because from the age of fourteen he lived in Portland Oregon where Laura is also based. Portland seems to have had quite a vibrant music scene because The Decemberists who I have been listening to recently also come from Portland. I might tell you about them in the near future. When I first heard of Elliott Smith, I imagined that his music would be kind of grungy like Kurt Cobain, but I was very pleasantly surprised to find this album is in the main very folkie, acoustic and melodic. The vocals are quiet, almost whispered on some tracks. I was hooked from the very first track Angel In The Snow. The feeling that you get from his voice is of an underlying sadness. 

With the excellent guitar playing and the melancholy atmosphere I immediately thought of Nick Drake. I don’t know if Elliott was influenced by Nick, but the comparisons are obvious and the reasons for both their deaths are officially inconclusive. They both had a troubled mind that is for sure. The guitar picking on many tracks is very Bob Dylanesque. The guitar sound also is sometimes reminiscent of The Beatles from the Rubber Soul/ Revolver period. When I was listening to the second CD the Velvet Underground song Pale Blue Eyes came into my head. Elliott Smith believed in Lo-Fi which meant working quickly and not over embellishing the songs. I like that because it gives the sound a very intimate feel. If I was still young and impressionable I think the lyrics of some songs might have put me in a dark place, but now I just feel sorry for Elliott Smith that he didn’t get the help he needed to sort out his mental health problems because he was undoubtedly a great talent. 

Songs like Looking Over My Shoulder are a plea to be left alone as other people irritated him. Miss Misery (early version) is the first version of a song which was in the soundtrack of the film Good Will Hunting and was nominated for an Oscar in 1997. He would have found the experience of performing at the Oscars quite excruciating I would imagine. (See Oscar performance below) The only song not written by Elliott is an angst-ridden cover of Thirteen by Big Star. It is hard to pick a favourite song, but one I really like is Whatever (Folk Song In C) because of the great guitar picking and the chorus, ‘What are you doing, hanging around with me?’.

In conclusion, I am glad I closed this gap in my music knowledge. I think this is an excellent album because of the musicianship and vocal delivery. The subject matter however is like existential dread. I think he might have written most of the songs late at night. There are no lyrics in the accompanying booklet, but I think there are scant references to nature, spirituality, love, optimism or other things that make life worth living, which I think is a shame, but on the other hand it is an honest expression of how he felt. I just think it is a pity that Elliott Smith died so young. We will never know what he might have achieved.