Another Form of Relief

This post actually begun life as a conversation in the pub last saturday. And by a conversation, I mean something that lasted all of two lines. Here’s a recreation of that action packed drama:

Simon: I’d like to hear that Ben Folds tribute song to Elliott Smith.
Eddie: I have that. I’ll throw it up on the blog at some point.

Now this was said in something of a jokey way. Surely putting up songs for friends from conversations in a pub is hardly the most professional way to go about running an mp3 blog. The more I thought about it though, I came up with slightly less feeble ways to spin it into an entire post. What began as a single song I was going to throw up with some other stuff has turned into a small collection of Elliott Smith tribute songs. Now I’m not bothered about crappy covers of Smith songs, just the original songs that were inspired by him. Which makes him sound like a film soundtrack, but no matter. I don’t have many of these though, but we’ve got three. For what it’s worth, I was going to put up Weezer’s ‘The Other Way’ with this as it apparently relates to a point, but it seemed a tad inappropriate.

MP3 Ben Folds - Late (expired)
Well this is the song that started it all off. Apparently Folds knew Smith, and toured with him a few times. Which would have been one hell of a concert to see live, but I digress. Folds’ tribute to Smith is the kind of song that he can do best: the simple piano ballad that focuses primarily on the lyrics for impact. It’s an incredibly sad song (”No, no / Things were looking up for you / Least that’s what I heard / No, no / Someone came along and washed away your hard-earned / Piece of mind”), although I suppose that’s an inevitability given the subject matter. One of the few songs from ‘Songs From Silverman’ I really do like though.

MP3 Rilo Kiley - Ripchord (expired)
MP3 Rilo Kiley - It Just Is (expired)
I could have put up nearly all of Rilo Kiley’s 2004 album ‘More Adventurous’, as there’s a ton of Smith related content on there. Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett were obviously huge fans of Smith (Sennett so much he seems to model himself on him musically), and that’s reflected in a lot of the album, but particularly these two songs. ‘Ripchord’ is just Blake and an acoustic guitar, which fits the song perfectly. I’ll be perfectly honest that I didn’t even realise it was about Smith at first, but it seems so obvious now. The second verse is sung directly to Smith (”I don’t know if you meant it / But you did yourself in / And I was even having a good day / When I found out we’d lost you”) and ends up being incredibly powerful. ‘It Just Is’ is the song that closes the album, moving from the loss of Smith the artist (”He wasn’t our son / He belonged to everyone”), moving through to the broader acceptance of death itself. It’s a powerful and fitting eulogy.

And just to bulk this out a little more, it only seems fair to include a little Smith while I’m at it..

MP3 Elliott Smith - A Fond Farewell (expired)

There are a bunch of other tribute songs to Smith according to a list on his Wikipedia entry, but these were the only ones that I already had. Or rather, the other ones listed were by bands that don’t really appeal to me all that much. There’s also a ton more Elliott Smith related content over at Sweet Adeline, his official website. You know, just for those of you who have been living under a rock these past few years and aren’t actually aware of him.

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