Underrated - E is for "Am i a little too lo-fi Emo today?"

I feel a little sad that there is only one underrated E artist. And, really, it isn't even an appropriate alphabetical categorization. For those of us who've spent too much time in libraries or fooling with databases and bibliographies, iTunes' method of alphabetizing can be maddening.

In the worlds of library science and file clerking, artists who use their given name as their stage moniker should be alphabetized by their last name. It is simply how things are done if we wish to keep order in our lives.

However, Steve Jobs and his minions are not interested in truly making our lives easier, they just want to sell episodes of Battlestar Galatica and the new Lady GaGa. And so, rather than an appropriately organized mp3 library, I get Elliot Smith categorized with the E's and not the S's.
I know my blog is hardly an exemplar of proper APA, MLA, or Chicago, but for real, fix yo style manual, Steve.

At any rate...

Elliot Smith - "Happiness/The Gondola Man," Figure 8

I am hardly a expert on Elliot Smith, much less a fan. It's not that I dislike him, a few of his songs scored Thumbsucker, which wasn't a great movie, but for some reason, I absolutely adore it. Likewise, Good Will Hunting.

But his music can make one feel very claustrophobic. His vocals often sound like he recorded them in a dark hall closet with a thick down comforter covering both him and the condenser mic. The songwriting is very good, the overall structure, the lyrics, the dynamics, but after awhile they start sounding so small and thus, they make me feel a little small. Like you took Paul Simon and put him inside a jewelry box.

It is telling that the song I picked feels a little more expansive--at least it does until the last movement/alternate song "The Gondola Man," where Smith reverts to his tiny and tinny sound. It is also maybe a little too hipster-ironic that the song is titled "Happiness," when the artist died in one of the most unhappy and excruciating ways imaginable.

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but overt and earnest pleas for happiness make me uncomfortable and sometimes make me snicker. Infomercials from motivational speakers come to mind. "All I wanted was to be happy, and Tony Robbins showed me how." Oprah and her best life. Joel Osteen. The list goes on. But at the same time, I am confronted by my own hypocrisy, because I frequently lament the fact that Americans seem unable to appreciate their lives and find contentedness. I blame TV, the Internet (I know, right?), Calvinist Christianity, the Native American genocide, Slavery, and James Madison for that inability to simply be happy with what you have.

So here is Elliot Smith-- a textbook tortured soul, no matter what Tolstoy tells us about unhappiness--asking to be happy. And he melts me. Makes me weep almost every time I hear the song, but also makes me feel bigger. Unlike the rest of his songs, I don't have the ceiling pressing down on me. I know that Smith, broken and battered psychologically, probably never found the happiness he so deeply desired. But the rest of can listen to the chorus of this song, totally free of pretense or cynicism, and hope for a moment. Hope that maybe we can find a bit of happiness for you and me.

Can't we?

Happiness/The Gondola Man - El...