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Many albums could be cited to support the claim that great suffering yields great art. Elliott Smith's XO should not be one of them. Smith's 1998 major label debut defies the "tortured singer-songwriter" stereotype, and takes up this defiance as a central theme. At a time when Smith was being groomed for a particular (and particularly condescending) brand of stardom, he produced a record that eviscerated one of the central assumptions of singersongwriterdom: that pain is beautiful. XO insists that romanticizing personal tragedy can only leave you "deaf and dumb and done." And it backs up this claim with some of the most artful and intelligent music of its day. Matthew LeMay writes an original take on a widely beloved album, steering clear of the sensationalist suicide angles that have dogged most analysis of Elliott Smith's extraordinary work.
124 pages, Paperback
First published March 15, 2009
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April 18, 2013
I think no one ever lives up to their potential, and that's not a negative thing, though it sounds like that in my songs. I mean, it does burn me out sometimes. But it's impossible to live up to your potential in this world because if you can, potential itself is not worth very much. People are infinitely more capable than what they end up showing.- Elliott Smith
"In other words..." Mathhew Lemay begins to explain what Smith had meant by saying the above.
Before I decided that yes I would go ahead and read another volume in the often disappointing 33 1/3 series I half assed researched Lemay's website. He is a senior contributor to Pitchfork. Reading Pitchfork mostly calls for me to talk to myself about how music criticism doesn't really mean more than it should, etc. It's all right, Mariel. Okay, so he didn't write that review of Aesop Rock's Skelethon.
I've written about this on gr before. I can't recall where. My favorite thing I have ever seen about reviews was from a young Aes fan on tumblr in response to that review. He beseeched for people to treat each other like we are all human beings in it together. That's how I feel. I can only hope I succeed in that because it is how I feel. The review that made me tell me it's all going to be okay went something like "Attempt to understand his lyrics at your own peril." I shake my head and tell me it's going to be okay.
Why would you meet someone telling yourself it's not going to be okay, you can't understand?
I remembered his old interviews with Destroyer's Dan Bejar. I liked that he understood that Bejar's songs work as a progression. Lyrics that seem unconnected to anything will feel like a light switching on in context when you have heard earlier songs. That he knew Bejar wasn't nonsensical impressed me. He still gave me a mental picture of a guy who is working. I'm writing for a purpose! Pitchfork probably puts you in a shower and sprays you with a hose until you come out asking questions to put on the spot and music lovers who see their favorites as humans (why wouldn't you?) would never think to ask. It feels awkward to read interviews, if the interviewer was asking what they thought YOU wanted to know, without thinking of you at all, so I stopped reading them.
Matthew Lemay writes over and over in DEFENSE of Elliott Smith's music as art and birthed from hard work as papa and skill as mama. He consults the already published theories (Roland Barthes on there is no such thing as genius). People cannot listen to music and forget labels. It was written in the stars. Singer songwriters equals serious and earnest colored outside the lines of complexities and no questions asked. The headstone says here lies a man who killed himself. The crowd bears flowers of so sorry, but didn't we see it coming because it was all true. The crowd walks to the next plot and hashes out theories of the next to be continued. Bull shit.
I would never have thought that Elliott Smith wasn't a human being.
I love what Virginia Woolf wrote about truth as something that could be true. It didn't have to happen. If you believed it....
I have known these songs for my life on my own. How would I write a review on music? I don't know how he did it. Can you drive with me at the end of the day when it finally becomes mine? I'll put in some Elliott Smith.
Here's the silhouette, the face always turned away
The bleeding color gone to black, dying like a day
Couldn't figure out what made you so unhappy
Shook your head to say no no no
And stopped for a spell
And stayed that way
Oh well, okay
I got pictures, I just don't see it anymore
Climbing hour upon hour through a total bore
With the one I keep, where it never fades
In the safety of a pitch-black mind
An airless cell
That blocks the day
Oh well, okay
If you get a feeling next time you see me
Do me a favor and let me know
'Cos it's hard to tell
It's hard to say
Oh well, okay
Oh well, okay
Oh well, okay
I feel like a real live person when I listen to this song. All of his albums I could listen to any of them and I will have to listen to all of them. I will HAVE to. They continue in my head and I want to take the lonely idea in my head to outside of me. It will live in this story. "Here I lay dreaming of the brilliant sun. Guiding its shining light on everyone." They are words that anyone could have and someone, Elliott Smith, put them together. They can be together now.
The strains of this voice... I can't call it in an expression that is easily identified as sad or happy or any other emotion that touches the lips and moves the eyes that always look the same and yet expressing... They look human. I love that inanimate objects given eyes (like toys, though I can imagine them in wood too). His voice, his words, feel so human to me when I feel so lost I can't get back to anything I know to call it. The music can sound familiar and calling and somewhere I have never been. He's Beatlesque and himself. It's like how people remind you of others and you can't call them anything but themselves. The mystery, the respect to be them, can't be stolen.
How could anyone not respect this?
I liked best the first part of the book that talked about the songs. When Lemay writes that Smith wrote guitar parts that seemed to breathe I knew too. I loved that. I didn't know about some of the lyric changes from live to recording (and vice versa). I can tell that songs like Waltz #2 (XO) moved Lemay too. He loves his music even if he decided that others were not capable of knowing this for themselves. I don't care about success versus not success.
I don't know what's up with the media image of Smith as the guy with the guitar either. They didn't hear the other instrumentation? Oh well.
I'm always happy to read people who love him. Sometimes I listen to a favorite song and then go online to read old comments from fellow fans. It feels good when someone felt what you did. I wish this book was like sharing that feeling.
Or if they didn't love him for reasons of their own, something they heard. A but you didn't give me a chance, why you felt that song sang to you. It could be to anyone. Why you? "Pictures of me" from Either/Or album I could feel that's not me, I didn't take those pictures. I have felt pinned when someone told me who they thought I was. I didn't hear hope of being wrong in that song. In other songs I do. Those are my favorites.
When I was young I once wrote something about the line in Baby Britain. "For someone half as smart you'd be a work of art." I felt the hopeless feeling of the point of separation when you grow past something. That isn't what the song is about and yet that line became an embodiment of my fear of losing. It's like in the J.D. Salinger stories about Buddy and Seymour. Buddy has the love above his head, a person to trust, a security. Seymour didn't have that faith. I was terrified of seeing things like going too far past and needing a greater perceived potential above your head. I called it the "glass ceiling" after Buddy and Seymour. Maybe it should be the great glass elevator like in Road Dahl's chocolate factory books. Press all the buttons just to see where they go and you fly out of the ceiling to you don't know where.
I know what's gonna happen to me
When people talk about love,
They're painting pictures of someone's pretty side
But go look yourself in the face
And watch the worlds collide,
watch the worlds collide.
So Lemay writes that his music is for everyone and not just "the real fans" and music experts. That's right.
John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats (his 33 1/3 contribution is my favorite, a beautiful story of the life music can give you even when you can't take it from anywhere else) wrote that Smith's "laundry list words prick at very specific emotional centers, but which add up to virtually nothing- they are like a dream of a song rather than an actual song..."
I know it's important to me to know those places are still there.
I know he's there and those places are there.
My place that says it's okay, it's not any more important than it has to be wants something to be important, and reachable. Matthew Lemay doesn't have to know how I feel when I listen to Elliott Smith.
November 24, 2012
I was a huge fan of Elliott Smith in college, and as a friend has newly discovered him I am experiencing a revival. I read this on the plane ride back from Thanksgiving. I'm giving it a huge fail because you can tell that LeMay is not a fan. He respects Elliott's music maybe but he doesn't seem to like it that much, or like or care about Elliott as a person... One of his whole arguments is that the cultural narrative surrounding Smith was discrediting Smith's hard work--LeMay argues he wasn't a suddenly discovered genius, but a diligent artist who had been solidly respected and working to make his music the best that it could be. He wants this to sound like a compliment of some kind, to me it comes across as defensive-sounding: Elliott wasn't all that! Some of his songs sucked at first!
And if he's interested in the cultural studies of music, and seems to fixated on the Oscar's moment himself even though he wants to argue that it led everyone down the wrong track in "reading" Elliott, maybe he should have gotten into why people were so struck with Elliott when faced with the pageantry of Celine Dion. That might have led him down some interesting pathways in analyzing he other thing he senses in Elliott, where he almost puts his finger on something, which was Smith's refusal of assertion, promotion, certainty, selling in favor of ambiguity and sitting with challenging or complex emotions. LeMay could have traced this from Elliott's lyrics back into the real world in which he was making music.
Also, his preoccupations in the book are perhaps related to his own concerns as a musician, but they don't illuminate the record: I don't care that Elliott got a $50,000 advance to make it, I wanted an affective and poetic reading of his lyrics and music. But I think to get that I will have to go back and read John Darnielle's review of the album in Last Flight To Jakarta, as the quotes pulled from that were the only thing in the whole book that seemed to have a sense of Elliott was about or trying to do, the real power of his genius as a musician. In fact, if you want to read a 33 1/3, I recommend you go read Darnielle's Masters of the Universe instead.
And if he's interested in the cultural studies of music, and seems to fixated on the Oscar's moment himself even though he wants to argue that it led everyone down the wrong track in "reading" Elliott, maybe he should have gotten into why people were so struck with Elliott when faced with the pageantry of Celine Dion. That might have led him down some interesting pathways in analyzing he other thing he senses in Elliott, where he almost puts his finger on something, which was Smith's refusal of assertion, promotion, certainty, selling in favor of ambiguity and sitting with challenging or complex emotions. LeMay could have traced this from Elliott's lyrics back into the real world in which he was making music.
Also, his preoccupations in the book are perhaps related to his own concerns as a musician, but they don't illuminate the record: I don't care that Elliott got a $50,000 advance to make it, I wanted an affective and poetic reading of his lyrics and music. But I think to get that I will have to go back and read John Darnielle's review of the album in Last Flight To Jakarta, as the quotes pulled from that were the only thing in the whole book that seemed to have a sense of Elliott was about or trying to do, the real power of his genius as a musician. In fact, if you want to read a 33 1/3, I recommend you go read Darnielle's Masters of the Universe instead.
January 28, 2014
Elliott Smith was a musician and songwriter everyone who loves music should listen to. If you’ve never heard his music before, rather than recommend entire albums, have a listen to the following songs: “Miss Misery”, “Say Yes”, “I Figured You Out”, “Needle in the Hay”, “Between the Bars” and “Angeles” – incredible, right? And if you’re already familiar with his music, you’ll know how unique he was as a talent. Unfortunately Smith killed himself in 2003 at the age of 34 after a lifetime of depression and numerous problems with addiction. His legacy of music will live on forever though, especially his 1998 album, XO.
Rather than focus on the gossipy side of Smith’s life like his drug/alcohol problems and his preoccupation with suicide, Matthew LeMay has chosen, very commendably, to focus on the art itself. Addiction in itself isn’t that interesting, especially in comparison to great art, and Smith himself wasn’t interested in expressing it in his music, looking upon the kind of self-pitying naval-gazing such song-writing celebrates as repulsively shallow.
This is the third 33 1/3 book I’ve read, the series which looks at and discusses seminal albums in bite-sized, dinky paperbacks. In The Pixies’ Doolittle, we see one of the most influential rock bands ever creating their best album and catch up with the band 20+ years later to discuss what the album meant and means to them. In The Beatles’ Let It be, we see the greatest band of all time in their last days but still producing amazing music, with that entire time period providing a fascinating story filled with many strong characters.
XO has no such compelling story. Smith was out of rehab (not for the last time) and was clean, throwing himself into his work, producing some of the finest music of his life. The recording went smoothly and everyone involved recollects their time in the studio fondly. And that’s it. Because of LeMay’s refusal to discuss Smith’s private life, most of the book focuses on his interpretations of the songs on the album, writing about them track by track, sprinkling them with details of Smith’s creative process and some technical details but essentially giving us his version of what each song is about and what they mean. Unfortunately, it’s not that gripping to read.
The book does highlight Smith’s talent as a lyricist, allowing for multiple interpretations and giving LeMay plenty of fodder to discuss the poetry of his words at length. And it is poetry, those lyrics are so unlike any you come across in any genre of songwriting - you can appreciate his work minus the music, just by reading the lyrics they’re that good. It also shows how much Smith cared about his art, spending years crafting songs, tweaking them year after year before committing them to record.
It was fascinating to see how “Waltz #2”, arguably XO’s best song, went from being a seemingly autobiographical story about his parents to a story that could be about anyone with some interesting dramatic characters. Conversely, it informed me how some songs on the record were written on the fly, with a song like Pitseleh being knocked out more or less in the studio. Pitseleh in particular is a song I’ve never really liked and the haste in which it was assembled partly explains my reaction to it as I feel it wasn’t as accomplished as other songs on the album. Smith also never played it live, probably believing it was unfinished or too incomplete a song and embarrassed to remind himself of it.
More than anything though is that the book emphasises how generally upbeat Smith’s music is, despite the tone of many songs. His whispered, seemingly personal lyrics about despondent characters, drug imagery, and assorted other connotations that most would interpret as the hallmarks of the depressed artist producing depressing work, are all misleading. Many of his songs aren’t necessarily uplifting but aren’t nearly as sad as some would say. LeMay tries to remove the shadow of Smith’s suicide from the music itself, saying that whatever Smith’s personal problems were, he consciously left them out of his work, and I think that’s a very true statement. There’s the art and then there’s the artist.
If you’re looking for a book full of stories of drug hazes and fights, you won’t find it here – instead you’ll find a thoughtful, though very dry, study of Smith’s album XO. While it’s not the most fascinating read, it underlines something about Smith I didn’t realise until I read this and that is that a satisfying, warts’n’all bio about him is likely to never appear. Partly because his family and friends won’t speak about him to anyone, but because, as LeMay asserts throughout, the most interesting thing about Elliott Smith by far was his music - nothing in his life quite compared to his art. So if you want to find out the kind of man he was, listen to XO, and Either/Or, and From A Basement On A Hill, or any of his albums – everything he was is in his songs, never to be caught in the pages of a book.
Rather than focus on the gossipy side of Smith’s life like his drug/alcohol problems and his preoccupation with suicide, Matthew LeMay has chosen, very commendably, to focus on the art itself. Addiction in itself isn’t that interesting, especially in comparison to great art, and Smith himself wasn’t interested in expressing it in his music, looking upon the kind of self-pitying naval-gazing such song-writing celebrates as repulsively shallow.
This is the third 33 1/3 book I’ve read, the series which looks at and discusses seminal albums in bite-sized, dinky paperbacks. In The Pixies’ Doolittle, we see one of the most influential rock bands ever creating their best album and catch up with the band 20+ years later to discuss what the album meant and means to them. In The Beatles’ Let It be, we see the greatest band of all time in their last days but still producing amazing music, with that entire time period providing a fascinating story filled with many strong characters.
XO has no such compelling story. Smith was out of rehab (not for the last time) and was clean, throwing himself into his work, producing some of the finest music of his life. The recording went smoothly and everyone involved recollects their time in the studio fondly. And that’s it. Because of LeMay’s refusal to discuss Smith’s private life, most of the book focuses on his interpretations of the songs on the album, writing about them track by track, sprinkling them with details of Smith’s creative process and some technical details but essentially giving us his version of what each song is about and what they mean. Unfortunately, it’s not that gripping to read.
The book does highlight Smith’s talent as a lyricist, allowing for multiple interpretations and giving LeMay plenty of fodder to discuss the poetry of his words at length. And it is poetry, those lyrics are so unlike any you come across in any genre of songwriting - you can appreciate his work minus the music, just by reading the lyrics they’re that good. It also shows how much Smith cared about his art, spending years crafting songs, tweaking them year after year before committing them to record.
It was fascinating to see how “Waltz #2”, arguably XO’s best song, went from being a seemingly autobiographical story about his parents to a story that could be about anyone with some interesting dramatic characters. Conversely, it informed me how some songs on the record were written on the fly, with a song like Pitseleh being knocked out more or less in the studio. Pitseleh in particular is a song I’ve never really liked and the haste in which it was assembled partly explains my reaction to it as I feel it wasn’t as accomplished as other songs on the album. Smith also never played it live, probably believing it was unfinished or too incomplete a song and embarrassed to remind himself of it.
More than anything though is that the book emphasises how generally upbeat Smith’s music is, despite the tone of many songs. His whispered, seemingly personal lyrics about despondent characters, drug imagery, and assorted other connotations that most would interpret as the hallmarks of the depressed artist producing depressing work, are all misleading. Many of his songs aren’t necessarily uplifting but aren’t nearly as sad as some would say. LeMay tries to remove the shadow of Smith’s suicide from the music itself, saying that whatever Smith’s personal problems were, he consciously left them out of his work, and I think that’s a very true statement. There’s the art and then there’s the artist.
If you’re looking for a book full of stories of drug hazes and fights, you won’t find it here – instead you’ll find a thoughtful, though very dry, study of Smith’s album XO. While it’s not the most fascinating read, it underlines something about Smith I didn’t realise until I read this and that is that a satisfying, warts’n’all bio about him is likely to never appear. Partly because his family and friends won’t speak about him to anyone, but because, as LeMay asserts throughout, the most interesting thing about Elliott Smith by far was his music - nothing in his life quite compared to his art. So if you want to find out the kind of man he was, listen to XO, and Either/Or, and From A Basement On A Hill, or any of his albums – everything he was is in his songs, never to be caught in the pages of a book.
October 23, 2022
So awesome
July 31, 2024
did u know grief can make u illiterate??
October 24, 2025
“Perhaps, then, Smith’s assertion that he ‘could have gone to that place’ isn’t all that far-fetched. After all, neverneverland is a place accessed not by knowledge, but by belief.”
It’s not that serious bro, it’s just a lyric.
Def my last 33 1/3 book - they read like college essays from people with no authority on the matter
It’s not that serious bro, it’s just a lyric.
Def my last 33 1/3 book - they read like college essays from people with no authority on the matter
July 24, 2013
A very academic examination not just of the album, but of the way we construct myths about our favorite musicians. Elliott Smith always got pegged as a sad sack, with folks pointing to his (often morose or depressing) songs as proof. The author makes an effort to examine how and why that myth was constructed, and takes a good crack at breaking the myth down and showing how strangely inaccurate it was.
March 1, 2012
While it may have read densely at times, the book presents an often ignored side of Smith as in-control, empathic, and a master of trial and error. It makes for a great break from the simplistic "Smith was a sad addict who killed himself and left clues in his music" narratives.
September 3, 2012
I cannot read this shit. Reads like a college essay, as a couple of other reviewers noted. Totally bloodless and dry. Was looking forward to some insight and stories behind the recording of a great album, not an analysis of the lyrics. I've loved the other 33 1/3 books, but this one's a dud.
November 5, 2013
Three-and-a-half stars. Some truly remarkable moments...and had there been more of them, it would've been a four star book. I most enjoyed the sometimes thick but wholly rewarding Part 2, much thanks to the section before the author starts his song-by-song commentary. Time and time again, critics and writers cast Smith as a living embodiment of sadness whose songs were purely confessional, and saying "understand the man's personal life and understand his music." Then, when Smith moved toward a wider instrumentation, more rock-n-roll arrangements and bigger production on XO--all while singing its somewhat mean lyrics--these same critics acted as though Smith was betraying both them and himself for not living out the idea of who they had cast him to be: the quiet, sad sack acoustic singer-songwriter, pulled from total obscurity into the spotlight. It didn't seem to matter that Smith himself never agreed with these portraits made of him and his music.
---
These are some of my favorite quotes from the book:
"In closely analyzing XO and its lyrics, my goal is not to somehow 'fix' the meaning of Smith's songs. Instead I offer a reading of XO in the hopes of unfixing some of the meanings that have been consistently and problematically tethered to Smith's imagined biography. In tracing the development of the songs that became XO, I hope to draw attention to the remarkable process by which Smith created, honed and refined his work. In examining Smith's lyrics, I hope to emphasize the themes and concerns that specifically run counter to the problematic biographical interpretations of XO." (21)
"'I like, if possible, to write the way that people actually speak. That's why when people bring up comparisons to poetic singer/songwriters it gets on my nerves. I don't feel as flowery!' Smith's skepticism toward the 'poetic singer/songwriter' figure goes beyond a simple distaste for 'flowery' language. In a...May 1998 interview with a Dutch TV station, Smith described his wariness toward 'manipulative' lyrics: 'The thing that's kind of a drag about the singer-songwriter tag it that it has this connotation of being super-sentimental, kinda manipulative lyrically, as if the person singing is trying to get everybody to feel just like them. But there's a big difference between describing...I mean, you take a picture of New York and one person will look at it and think that it's really / depressing and frightening, and another person will look at it and think of all the fun things you could do...I think songs are kind of like that.'" (19-20)
"Perhaps the most remarkable thing about XO is that it doesn't ask for you love; Smith's performances as with his lyrics, wholly lack the cues that singer-songwriters...will often drop to draw attention to their craft, particularly the "this is a clever lyric' panache that makes a small handful of 'clever' pop singers so compelling, and many more of the so insufferable...I am hard pressed to think of a single singer-songwriter as lyrically or musically clever as Smith who showed so little interest in projecting the brilliance and sophistication of his music back onto himself. For Smith, singing always seemed like a disembodied act, an earnest attempt to generate something that could / exist apart from its creator and, in turn, speak for itself. In the coming pages, I attempt to trace the process by which Smith gave voice to the fourteen astonishing songs that constitute XO." (23-24)
"one begins to see how both Smith's 'life story' ('star image') and popular readings of his music ('narrative image') could be simultaneously constructed through a sort of epistemological feedback loop. For Smith to be an 'authentic' singer-songwriter, he must have really experienced that things he sings about--especially those that most mark him as 'other' to the glitzy world of Hollywood. For the gratifying completion of Smith's 'star image' to take place, his music must, in turn, reflect the biography offered in newspapers and magazines. For Smith to retain his 'authenticity,' that reading of his music must be verified by the 'life story' told in newspapers and magazines. And so it goes." (95)
"For Smith's music to effectively complete his 'star image' (and for it to remain newsworthy), it must be continually constructed as other to the perceived excess of pop music." (102)
"XO, with its impeccable production values and forceful / rock and roll arrangements, threatened to undermine this very 'delicious incongruity,' perhaps accounting for the newfound emphasis on Smith's personal life it seems to have triggered in the mainstream press." (102-103)
Many critics implied that the "truth" of Smith's work (as a more-genuine-than-most singer-songwriter at heart) was there to be unearthed beneath the wider instrumentation: "once again, the suggestion that [XO's] 'gritty imagery' is the part of Smith's music that needs to be 'grasped' swiftly dismisses the album's remarkable musical achievement as something that needs to be overcome to get to the 'real' nature of Smith's songwriting." (103)
"Broadly speaking, those musicians whose 'genre' casts them as musical innovators or cultural pastiche artist are not necessarily presumed to be expressing some deeply held emotion or experience. By contrast, the 'folk,' 'acoustic' or 'singer-songwriter' genre construct is often presumed to be the most directly confessional. While postmodern posterboy Beck released the more conventionally 'folky' Sea Change in 2002, it was suddenly held as a shining example of personal 'truth' put to music, dramatically recasting the type of 'creativity' credited to artist who had previously been seen primarily as a clever aesthetic manipulator. Rolling Stone called Sea Change 'an impeccable album of truth and light [created] from the end of love.' Nobody seemed particularly interested in what emotional experience(s) may have informed Midnite Vultures, nor / in the possibility that Sea Change was simply another genre experiment from one of pop music's most dextrous stylistic chameleons. indeed, while Beck has his rots in the self-proclaimed 'anti-folk' scene and helped to usher in the playful aesthetic irreverence of the mid-to-late 1990s, even he could not escape some of the longest standing cultural assumptions about creative production." (109-110)
From Roland Barthes "The Death of the Author": "'criticism still consists for the most part in saying that Baudelaire's work is the failure of Baudelaire the man, Van Gogh's his madness, Tchaikovsky's his vice. The explanation of a work is always sought in the man or woman who produced it, as if it were always / in the end, through the more or less transparent allegory of the fiction, the voice of a single person, the author 'confiding' in us." (110-111)
"Ironically, the burgeoning online media democracy seems only to have exaggerated this effect; as blogs and message boards offer up innumerable, conflicting interpretations of / creative work, the urge to fix a piece of art to its 'true' meaning is more prevalent than ever. If we are to give up the quest to fix Smith's music in its 'true' meaning, we must also give up the romantic illusion that this meaning is only accessible to a select few 'true' fans, or to those who knew Smith personally. To do so is both to draw a tenuous interpretive perimeter around Smith's work itself, and to accept that the potential meanings that exist within that perimeter are limitless. In doing so, we recast Smith not as a rarefied genius whose artistic concerns are beyond our understanding, but rather as a skilled, dedicated, and fallible craftsman whose work we can all discuss, interpret and enjoy." (112)
"The particulars of how the 'real life' of Elliott Smith informed his work are not really accessible to anybody other than Smith himself, who insisted both in interviews and in his music that personal struggle does not translate into great art...It is the urge to reduce his life into a cartoonish narrative, then read that narrative back into his music, that threatens to bleed the color, life , and complexity from an amazing body of work." (117)
---
These are some of my favorite quotes from the book:
"In closely analyzing XO and its lyrics, my goal is not to somehow 'fix' the meaning of Smith's songs. Instead I offer a reading of XO in the hopes of unfixing some of the meanings that have been consistently and problematically tethered to Smith's imagined biography. In tracing the development of the songs that became XO, I hope to draw attention to the remarkable process by which Smith created, honed and refined his work. In examining Smith's lyrics, I hope to emphasize the themes and concerns that specifically run counter to the problematic biographical interpretations of XO." (21)
"'I like, if possible, to write the way that people actually speak. That's why when people bring up comparisons to poetic singer/songwriters it gets on my nerves. I don't feel as flowery!' Smith's skepticism toward the 'poetic singer/songwriter' figure goes beyond a simple distaste for 'flowery' language. In a...May 1998 interview with a Dutch TV station, Smith described his wariness toward 'manipulative' lyrics: 'The thing that's kind of a drag about the singer-songwriter tag it that it has this connotation of being super-sentimental, kinda manipulative lyrically, as if the person singing is trying to get everybody to feel just like them. But there's a big difference between describing...I mean, you take a picture of New York and one person will look at it and think that it's really / depressing and frightening, and another person will look at it and think of all the fun things you could do...I think songs are kind of like that.'" (19-20)
"Perhaps the most remarkable thing about XO is that it doesn't ask for you love; Smith's performances as with his lyrics, wholly lack the cues that singer-songwriters...will often drop to draw attention to their craft, particularly the "this is a clever lyric' panache that makes a small handful of 'clever' pop singers so compelling, and many more of the so insufferable...I am hard pressed to think of a single singer-songwriter as lyrically or musically clever as Smith who showed so little interest in projecting the brilliance and sophistication of his music back onto himself. For Smith, singing always seemed like a disembodied act, an earnest attempt to generate something that could / exist apart from its creator and, in turn, speak for itself. In the coming pages, I attempt to trace the process by which Smith gave voice to the fourteen astonishing songs that constitute XO." (23-24)
"one begins to see how both Smith's 'life story' ('star image') and popular readings of his music ('narrative image') could be simultaneously constructed through a sort of epistemological feedback loop. For Smith to be an 'authentic' singer-songwriter, he must have really experienced that things he sings about--especially those that most mark him as 'other' to the glitzy world of Hollywood. For the gratifying completion of Smith's 'star image' to take place, his music must, in turn, reflect the biography offered in newspapers and magazines. For Smith to retain his 'authenticity,' that reading of his music must be verified by the 'life story' told in newspapers and magazines. And so it goes." (95)
"For Smith's music to effectively complete his 'star image' (and for it to remain newsworthy), it must be continually constructed as other to the perceived excess of pop music." (102)
"XO, with its impeccable production values and forceful / rock and roll arrangements, threatened to undermine this very 'delicious incongruity,' perhaps accounting for the newfound emphasis on Smith's personal life it seems to have triggered in the mainstream press." (102-103)
Many critics implied that the "truth" of Smith's work (as a more-genuine-than-most singer-songwriter at heart) was there to be unearthed beneath the wider instrumentation: "once again, the suggestion that [XO's] 'gritty imagery' is the part of Smith's music that needs to be 'grasped' swiftly dismisses the album's remarkable musical achievement as something that needs to be overcome to get to the 'real' nature of Smith's songwriting." (103)
"Broadly speaking, those musicians whose 'genre' casts them as musical innovators or cultural pastiche artist are not necessarily presumed to be expressing some deeply held emotion or experience. By contrast, the 'folk,' 'acoustic' or 'singer-songwriter' genre construct is often presumed to be the most directly confessional. While postmodern posterboy Beck released the more conventionally 'folky' Sea Change in 2002, it was suddenly held as a shining example of personal 'truth' put to music, dramatically recasting the type of 'creativity' credited to artist who had previously been seen primarily as a clever aesthetic manipulator. Rolling Stone called Sea Change 'an impeccable album of truth and light [created] from the end of love.' Nobody seemed particularly interested in what emotional experience(s) may have informed Midnite Vultures, nor / in the possibility that Sea Change was simply another genre experiment from one of pop music's most dextrous stylistic chameleons. indeed, while Beck has his rots in the self-proclaimed 'anti-folk' scene and helped to usher in the playful aesthetic irreverence of the mid-to-late 1990s, even he could not escape some of the longest standing cultural assumptions about creative production." (109-110)
From Roland Barthes "The Death of the Author": "'criticism still consists for the most part in saying that Baudelaire's work is the failure of Baudelaire the man, Van Gogh's his madness, Tchaikovsky's his vice. The explanation of a work is always sought in the man or woman who produced it, as if it were always / in the end, through the more or less transparent allegory of the fiction, the voice of a single person, the author 'confiding' in us." (110-111)
"Ironically, the burgeoning online media democracy seems only to have exaggerated this effect; as blogs and message boards offer up innumerable, conflicting interpretations of / creative work, the urge to fix a piece of art to its 'true' meaning is more prevalent than ever. If we are to give up the quest to fix Smith's music in its 'true' meaning, we must also give up the romantic illusion that this meaning is only accessible to a select few 'true' fans, or to those who knew Smith personally. To do so is both to draw a tenuous interpretive perimeter around Smith's work itself, and to accept that the potential meanings that exist within that perimeter are limitless. In doing so, we recast Smith not as a rarefied genius whose artistic concerns are beyond our understanding, but rather as a skilled, dedicated, and fallible craftsman whose work we can all discuss, interpret and enjoy." (112)
"The particulars of how the 'real life' of Elliott Smith informed his work are not really accessible to anybody other than Smith himself, who insisted both in interviews and in his music that personal struggle does not translate into great art...It is the urge to reduce his life into a cartoonish narrative, then read that narrative back into his music, that threatens to bleed the color, life , and complexity from an amazing body of work." (117)
December 10, 2022
Meh.
I’m not a fan of rock (wannabe) writers trying to explain what certain lyrics may or may not mean. I went on an Elliott Smith binge this week after having watched the really well done documentary from a few years ago and the music still sounds fresh to me after not having heard it in several years.
It makes me wonder what Elliott could have done If he had kept on living; it’s sad because he was clearly very talented and made some great music in his short career. He also had some demons that in the end got the best of him.
“XO” was my introduction to ES; I bought the CD(!) on a whim after having heard his name from a jazz piano player whom I really liked about 17 years ago, before streaming existed and people still had to buy CDs, and I really dug it. I bought “XO” and Rufus Wainwright’s “Poses” at the same time, which I liked but not as much as “XO”. XO stayed in my CD player for a while, with daily listens.
“XO” is a great record for a number of reasons: the music, the lyrics, the melodies. The lyrics are dark for the most part and they may or may not be autobiographical. Who cares? The listener takes what they want from the music and how it speaks to them.
The issue I have with this particular book is that after some pretty good background information on how the record was made, including insight from some of the people involved in making it, as well as the details of Elliott’s career during this time, the author sets out to dissect each and every tune.
Some he goes at great length to analyze while others he completely dismisses, like “Independence Day” one of my favorite tracks. His pseudo-philosophical take on certain songs not to mention his overly “look at how intellectual I can be” writing grated on me after a while.
You have been warned.
I’m not a fan of rock (wannabe) writers trying to explain what certain lyrics may or may not mean. I went on an Elliott Smith binge this week after having watched the really well done documentary from a few years ago and the music still sounds fresh to me after not having heard it in several years.
It makes me wonder what Elliott could have done If he had kept on living; it’s sad because he was clearly very talented and made some great music in his short career. He also had some demons that in the end got the best of him.
“XO” was my introduction to ES; I bought the CD(!) on a whim after having heard his name from a jazz piano player whom I really liked about 17 years ago, before streaming existed and people still had to buy CDs, and I really dug it. I bought “XO” and Rufus Wainwright’s “Poses” at the same time, which I liked but not as much as “XO”. XO stayed in my CD player for a while, with daily listens.
“XO” is a great record for a number of reasons: the music, the lyrics, the melodies. The lyrics are dark for the most part and they may or may not be autobiographical. Who cares? The listener takes what they want from the music and how it speaks to them.
The issue I have with this particular book is that after some pretty good background information on how the record was made, including insight from some of the people involved in making it, as well as the details of Elliott’s career during this time, the author sets out to dissect each and every tune.
Some he goes at great length to analyze while others he completely dismisses, like “Independence Day” one of my favorite tracks. His pseudo-philosophical take on certain songs not to mention his overly “look at how intellectual I can be” writing grated on me after a while.
You have been warned.
July 16, 2018
Elliott Smith's XO is certainly up there for me in my favourite all time records, so I was excited to read this one. I can certainly see why it has the average rating that it does as the book is clinical and forensic in its approach to the songs that are featured on the album and to Smith's lasting legacy and perception within the media and how this played into how he is looked.
In this regard the book is split into two defined sections with LeMay detailing the evolution of the songs and album showing how the initial vision for the album changed as the recording went on and where songs were added at the last minute. This evolution is displayed through displaying the constant revisions Smith made to his lyrics and comparing the final recordings with the demos that Smith made.
The second section surrounding the myth of Elliott Smith is dealt with highlighting some of the pieces written about Smith especially in the aftermath of his Oscar nomination and performance. The perception of hard working, talented musician to plucked from nowhere waif is quick, startling and in its way disturbing. I feel LeMay does a good job here, but pulls away a little in not fully disclosing Smith's personal troubles, which offset why he was portrayed as he was. The book does display a massive sea change in our culture over the years with regards suicide and especially that of musicians. In some of the quotes LeMay uses Smith's previous suicide attempt is a way to varnish the sad sack image that is derived for him. Ultimately, Smith's suicide will never shift the cloud of this myth.
This is an instructive and informative look into a musician working hard to make a great album and works to underline that a songwriter's words aren't necessarily a show all confessional. The book perhaps isn't for everyone though due to the cold tone struck throughout.
In this regard the book is split into two defined sections with LeMay detailing the evolution of the songs and album showing how the initial vision for the album changed as the recording went on and where songs were added at the last minute. This evolution is displayed through displaying the constant revisions Smith made to his lyrics and comparing the final recordings with the demos that Smith made.
The second section surrounding the myth of Elliott Smith is dealt with highlighting some of the pieces written about Smith especially in the aftermath of his Oscar nomination and performance. The perception of hard working, talented musician to plucked from nowhere waif is quick, startling and in its way disturbing. I feel LeMay does a good job here, but pulls away a little in not fully disclosing Smith's personal troubles, which offset why he was portrayed as he was. The book does display a massive sea change in our culture over the years with regards suicide and especially that of musicians. In some of the quotes LeMay uses Smith's previous suicide attempt is a way to varnish the sad sack image that is derived for him. Ultimately, Smith's suicide will never shift the cloud of this myth.
This is an instructive and informative look into a musician working hard to make a great album and works to underline that a songwriter's words aren't necessarily a show all confessional. The book perhaps isn't for everyone though due to the cold tone struck throughout.
January 9, 2019
A great book about the album XO. This is a beautiful record by the talented Elliott Smith, released in 1998. It's a bit of a sea change from his previous albums, which were heavily acoustic and often recorded with lo-fi quality. Three of my favorite songs are on this album: "Sweet Adeline," "Tomorrow Tomorrow" and "Independence Day." The book does the album justice. There is little here about Elliott himself; but LeMay does a great job writing about XO, as well as the tracks Elliott recorded around the same time. LeMay makes interesting observations about each song, ably addressing the meanings of the lyrics of each song, as well as the musical dynamics. He gives the album the praise it deserves and avoids veering into annoying tangents, as so many of the 33 1/3 books often do.
After this part in the book concludes, LeMay moves on to performing a rhetorical analysis on the myth of Elliott Smith in the media. LeMay clearly objects to the press descriptions of Smith and his music. He points out, that in 1997-1998, many writers were painting Smith as a disheveled troubadour with a death wish. He takes pains to show how articulate, philosophical, technically astute, and musically gifted Smith was, as evidenced by this album. This section of the book caught me by surprise, but it was a welcome surprise.
Overall, this was a strong book and an interesting read.
After this part in the book concludes, LeMay moves on to performing a rhetorical analysis on the myth of Elliott Smith in the media. LeMay clearly objects to the press descriptions of Smith and his music. He points out, that in 1997-1998, many writers were painting Smith as a disheveled troubadour with a death wish. He takes pains to show how articulate, philosophical, technically astute, and musically gifted Smith was, as evidenced by this album. This section of the book caught me by surprise, but it was a welcome surprise.
Overall, this was a strong book and an interesting read.
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September 1, 2023The best parts of this book are the John Darnielle quotes, and perhaps (no question) he should have been the one to write this book. Every time I scroll through books I have read, I remember how disappointing this book was, and I hate to really tear into anyone’s creative endeavors in such a public way, but this book is what happens when someone talks themselves into a position of authority without actually having the demonstrable qualities required to excel or even meet expectations. This doesn’t even focus in on the album it purports to, it’s a jumbled mess of a facts pulled from the internet - arguably the only way to write a book about a deceased individual of which you had no personal connection, but jeeze this is just really a terrible book. I read this two months ago and I’m still upset about how bad it was. If we can call something terrible a can of ass, this is a half drank can of ass that someone has shoved to the back of the refrigerator and forgotten about for several months. In fact, maybe it spilled on something at the back of the fridge and as we all know, can of ass is sticky. So now it’s a sticky, rotten, half-can-of-ass mess.
December 18, 2023
The most academic of these that I’ve read. Rigorous analysis of his craft, impassioned attempts to deconstruct the myth of the man. But often quite dry. I am very grateful to this book for bringing the below, from a contemporary review of the album, to my attention:
One of my favorite lines in the song goes: "You look at him like you've never known him/ But I know for a fact that you have." It's the line that leads off the song's second verse, coming out of nowhere at all. The first verse had been a solitary affair uncluttered by second parties. You and I both know the sentiment behind such a line; it requires no explication. The acrid taste it leaves in your mouth speaks for itself. What's unusual here is that since the feeling behind such a line is self-evident, its author offers no narrative detail of any kind to flesh it out for you. The song is a laundry list of words and phrases that prick at very specific emotional centers, but which add up to virtually nothing- they are like a dream of a song rather than an actual song. ... To find such painterly writing framed by the pleasant, palatable music that we find here is nothing short of alarming.
One of my favorite lines in the song goes: "You look at him like you've never known him/ But I know for a fact that you have." It's the line that leads off the song's second verse, coming out of nowhere at all. The first verse had been a solitary affair uncluttered by second parties. You and I both know the sentiment behind such a line; it requires no explication. The acrid taste it leaves in your mouth speaks for itself. What's unusual here is that since the feeling behind such a line is self-evident, its author offers no narrative detail of any kind to flesh it out for you. The song is a laundry list of words and phrases that prick at very specific emotional centers, but which add up to virtually nothing- they are like a dream of a song rather than an actual song. ... To find such painterly writing framed by the pleasant, palatable music that we find here is nothing short of alarming.
December 30, 2025
does a better job at demystifying Elliot smith's, in the words of the author, "cartoonish narrative" than the well known documentary Heaven Adores You, I still found this to be a poorly written and tepid piece of writing on Elliot Smith and his work. The author is constantly dipping his opinions, expressing them in implied subtext and refusing to comment on them directly, and pulling back. It was frustrating and made parts of this such a bore to read. Elliot smith means so much to so many people not because of his music or his aesthetic, but rather his commitment to kindness, his artistry, and finding new ways of expression. He was an epic human being and what does remain of his interviews and direct writing are interesting, sweet, and smart. If the author had created a human being it would have done more for the cause than just bashing on a bunch of critics. But, as this was written by a critic, the aforementioned seems an inevitable endeavor. I enjoyed the track by track breakdown. Writing was just way too speculative. Needed more direction. more i could say but don't feel like writing
October 17, 2019
I haven’t written many reviews, but I have to warn others against this book. As others have noted, you can tell that LeMay is not a real fan and I’ll add that he hasn’t done his homework. He misinterprets song meanings - and granted, Elliott didn’t often interpret his own songs, but LeMay misses the times that Elliott did share his perspective. I think LeMay has only ever read Elliott’s interview in Big Takeover. He not only gets the song meanings wrong, he gets some of the facts wrong. It’s not hard to find out that “Pitseleh” was about JJ Gonson, an ex-gf who he felt guilty about leaving (though they stayed friends) bc he was never in love with her the way he was in love with Joanna Bolme. It’s also not hard to find out that “Between the Bars” (which isn’t even on this album!) was written from the perspective of an alcoholic drink. Mr LeMay, I hope you do your homework on any other albums you choose to write about. You certainly didn’t here.
February 12, 2025
I've read quite a few books in the 33 1/3 series, and unfortunately this one just wasn't for me.
LeMay's focus on Elliot Smith's work as opposed to the intricacies of his personal life serves as a dignified counteraction to the misguided, prying articles that begged Smith to fit a distinct box; that of the miserable, druggy singer-songwriter, cutting a vein and letting himself bleed onto manuscript.
However, the formatting of this book reads as dull and clunky, simply going through the motions as we walk through each song and the author's lyrical interpretations. The constant quoting quickly becomes convoluted (Christ, a lot of alliteration there) and the piece takes the unmistakable shape of an opinion piece, his definitive language leaving little room for readers to reach their own conclusions.
If you're hoping for a well-rounded discussion of 'XO' with reference to more than its lyrical components, I'd look elsewhere.
LeMay's focus on Elliot Smith's work as opposed to the intricacies of his personal life serves as a dignified counteraction to the misguided, prying articles that begged Smith to fit a distinct box; that of the miserable, druggy singer-songwriter, cutting a vein and letting himself bleed onto manuscript.
However, the formatting of this book reads as dull and clunky, simply going through the motions as we walk through each song and the author's lyrical interpretations. The constant quoting quickly becomes convoluted (Christ, a lot of alliteration there) and the piece takes the unmistakable shape of an opinion piece, his definitive language leaving little room for readers to reach their own conclusions.
If you're hoping for a well-rounded discussion of 'XO' with reference to more than its lyrical components, I'd look elsewhere.
April 23, 2021
Es un caso curioso el de este libro. Porque termina siendo indirectamente ilustrativo sobre el enredo de autorías musicales que mantienen a Elliott Smith entrando y saliendo del catálogo de Spotify.
Fuera de ello funciona como un interesante recopilatorio de declaraciones de otras publicaciones en torno a la publicación del álbum. Hay un apartado donde supuestamente comenta cada pista. Pero la realidad es que Smith grabó una cantidad enorme de canciones en esas sesiones y aquí menciona apenas las del LP, Miss Misery y algunas otras obvias, dejando fuera algunas que sí ameritaban mención.
La segunda mitad del libro es un ensayo sobre la figura de Elliott y francamente es la parte fallida del texto. Pero resulta interesante para los fans. Aunque no es imperdible.
Fuera de ello funciona como un interesante recopilatorio de declaraciones de otras publicaciones en torno a la publicación del álbum. Hay un apartado donde supuestamente comenta cada pista. Pero la realidad es que Smith grabó una cantidad enorme de canciones en esas sesiones y aquí menciona apenas las del LP, Miss Misery y algunas otras obvias, dejando fuera algunas que sí ameritaban mención.
La segunda mitad del libro es un ensayo sobre la figura de Elliott y francamente es la parte fallida del texto. Pero resulta interesante para los fans. Aunque no es imperdible.
August 19, 2022
Oof. An album as brilliant and moving as XO deserves far better treatment than this. If the writer feels any passion at all about XO, it's far from clear in this. This reads more like a paper I would've churned out at the last possible minute in college about a topic I cared little about one way or the other, complete with transparently obvious and hilarious padding and extensive quotes from writers on only tangentially related topics. So yeah, this was quite a disappointment, but I'm still giving it 2 stars because I was at least compelled to revisit XO (always a good thing) and dig up some of the b-sides I'd not heard before.
June 7, 2023
“The change from "coming home" to "going home" peaks to the precision of Smith's word choice; one slight directional shift substantially alters the sense of place conjured by the song as a whole. "Coming home" implies that the person you're addressing is already there; "going home" removes that implicit third party and its resultant sense of connection and grounded-ness, reinforcing the free-floating and amorphous feel of the song itself”
“It is the urge to reduce his life into a cartoonish narrative, then read that narrative back into his music, that threatens to bleed the color, life, and complexity from an amazing body of work”
“It is the urge to reduce his life into a cartoonish narrative, then read that narrative back into his music, that threatens to bleed the color, life, and complexity from an amazing body of work”
September 1, 2023
a completely false but also 100% true thing is that no one likes elliott smith more than i do except maybe phoebe bridgers. theres a line in this book which describes his guitar playing like it breathes and that puts into words exactly what i feel when i listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F9CC.... also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQnOI.... XO is not my favorite album that's either/or but XO is kinda of a turning point to smith's life. the second part of this book is a really good discursive on why modern music criticism shouldn't conflate lyrics and real life as much as it tends to do.
June 9, 2024
Another solid entry in this cool series of album “deep dives” - “look-ins” as I’d call them out of the two I’ve read so far. I love “XO,” so this was a great way to learn a little bit more about it. LeMay did great research and pulled a lot of great quotes. Sometimes the writing was a little too grandiose for me, but overall the author offered great insight and introspection on one of my favorite albums of all time!
January 8, 2023
Cool insight on one of my favorite albums
March 1, 2023
great album, mediocre book (sorry). i did like that it made me dive deeper into the album as a whole though
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August 3, 2023oops just read this in one and a half sittings
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September 30, 2025You once talked to me about love /
And you painted pictures of a Never Never Land /
And I could've gone to that place /
But I didn't understand /
I didn't understand
And you painted pictures of a Never Never Land /
And I could've gone to that place /
But I didn't understand /
I didn't understand
December 30, 2025
great art doesn't need to come from pain
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January 28, 2025LeMay offers a novel perspective on XO’s sonic offerings, pointing out intonations and musical motifs I hadn’t noticed before - particularly, his descriptions of Pitseleh and Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands illustrate the splendor with which Smith intricately carved out these songs. However, he does seem to omit fairly huge details about some of the album’s lyrical inspirations that we know to be true (paradoxically, Pitseleh being a case in point). He makes a point of straying away from the contextual factors that seemed to shape perceptions of Smith’s music contemporarily (and to this day). In the second half of the book, LeMay seems to take issue with media rhetoric that accompanied Smith’s rise, in particular around the time of his Oscars performance - these at times feel like a bit of a stretch, particularly his eschewing of Either/Or and Miss Misery as ‘acoustic’ releases, which I think are fairly appropriate if vague descriptors. Additionally, he seems to perhaps misinterpret juxtapositions made by the media at the time between Smith and Celine Dion as disparaging - they may have had some unnecessary bite at times, but these depictions primarily seemed to praise the refreshing approach to independent music creation and curation that LeMay discusses at length in Part 1. Torn between 3 and 4 stars but overall an engaging and fascinating read.
July 19, 2022
3.5/5
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