I very much appreciate my younger sister Alison. Well she's my sister of course and I love her. My first memory of all I'd maintain, is of her. Going to the hospital with my dad, in his Mercedes. We were in Salisbury, Rhodesia, now Harare, Zimbabwe. It was probably June 1969, as she'd been born at the end of May. We were going to pick her and my mother up from the hospital.
My mother came out holding Alison in a blanket and sat in the front seat of the car. It's a detail I remember as it's not something that anyone would do now. Surely. You'd sit in the back. I remember Alison's hair as impossibly blond. Beautiful. It was probably a moment of rude awakening for me. That I was no longer about to get quite so much of a mother's attention that I'd thrived on and which had nourished me. I was three and a half years old.
But I appreciate Alison for many other things. We share certain sensibilities and cultural tastes and enjoy talking about them and why we like things so much and what they mean to us. Musically we've shared some things. My favourite concert going experience of all. R.E.M. at the peak of their powers in Autumn '85. My first term at University. Playing at the Hammersmith Palais to support Fables of the Reconstruction. A Cramps gig in the same academic year.
But also listening experiences. Hearing Nick Drake's voice and songs for the first time. In my brother's flat in North London. Then, in the early Nineties Big Star. Shortly afterwards too when she played me Elliott Smith for the first time. We were in her flat at the time. Above the famed Maid of Honour Tea Rooms. In Kew. Opposite Kew Gardens.
It was probably not the happiest period of either of our lives. We both had things to contest. But Elliott certainly spoke to me immediately as he continues to do so. Almost thirty years later. I go through Smth phases and play his songs repeatedly for a few days once in a while. Every year of so. I try not to dwell to much on his evident pain and focus on his talent, which I'd say is considerable. And his joy. Which is considerable too.
I'm focusing in Either / Or here which is considered by many to be his masterpiece, though I don't like to get emboiled in conversations like that. Smith's talent is evident in almost every record he made. But this is certainly a special album. It's his coming out ceremony if you like. The one where he announces his talent to the world. When he put it out in 1997.
Either / Or contains twelve songs. Thet're all brief and unembroidered. Mostly acoustic guitar, Smith's voice and minimal backings. Special, poetic lyrics all of which can be readily heard. Songs about love, pain, joy, grief, anger and violence. Often directed inwards. He's an artist for passive aggressives. I'm more than likely one of those myself. I think many of us are.
I love Smith as an artist because he can do many things incredibly well within the passage of individual songs. He knows how to flick the switch in the way that great poets like Sylvia Plath or great writers like Graham Greene can. To take you with him as he explores the human psyche and all it's capable of. What we do to ourselves. And to each other.
He has a poet and writer's gift. but a songwriter's gift too which adds a whole other dimension of emotion and poignancy to the experience of listening to his records. Most of all he has an eye for detail which is almost unparalled. He's in a field all of his own for me. Which is all any artist can hope to be.
This might sound like an odd things to say as there are immediate parallels which spring to mind when you consider his personality and work. He bends at the knee of two musical artists most obviously; The Beatles and Big Star. He scoops the joy from The Beatles and the sadness and self pity from Big Star. The talent and songwriting craft from both. Then he makes their songs his own.
Smith emerged in a decade which was full of sadness, slightly paranoid and often overly obsessive on internalised pain. He's often compared to a couple of musical artists who didn't make it either. In life anyhow. Though they certainly did as artists, Kurt Cobain and Jeff Buckley. I like Cobain and Buckley and enjoy and appreciate the music of both. But I'm not here to write about either of them. They both share similarities with Smith but they're both quite different too.
While writing this piece I've had Either / Or playing on my headphones on repeat. It's a record you can do this with. It doesn't get boring. I love the way these songs rise and fall, twist and turn. Paint pictures with a photographer's eye, a great film director's flair. Smith could easily have worked across artistic forms.
I won't go into the songs in detail. Hey, the record's good. Listen to it yourself. It's a great album and it keeps giving. Twenty five years or more on.
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