submissions

Elliott Smith – Waltz #1 Lyrics	21 years ago
It's about a relationship that had no real basis because these two people couldn't communicate properly. Now every time they argue, he's constantly asking her what he was supposed to say in the first place. Thus, he's even more guarded and cut off from her. So he wishes they'd never met in the first place.

submissions

Elliott Smith – Say Yes Lyrics

21 years ago

I think the song is pretty basic. This guy's in love with a girl who's changed his outlook on life. But I think that she wasn't ready for a committed relationship and/or is seeing someone else and is now trying to decide who she wants. He's matured since the breakup because he realized that it wasn't the end of the world. Now he's waiting for her to make up her mind, although he'll "probably be the last to know" whether she wants him or not. "Say yes" is him pleading with her to choose to stay with him.

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Elliott Smith – The Last Hour Lyrics

21 years ago

At first, I thought he was talking about someone who has ruined his life as well as their own. But now I think he is talking to himself. He messed up badly. The army/that you mowed to the ground" is all of the people around him that he hurt in the process. He was selfish, and only ever gave a damn about his own opinion. If he cuts all of the people who care about him out of his life, it won't matter if he messes up again because he'll only be hurting himself. Instead of trying to make amends, he's given up and decided he'll "be staying down/where no one else gonna give [him] grief." His "staying down" kind of sounds like suicide, if you ask me.

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Elliott Smith – 2:45 AM Lyrics	21 years ago
I think this guy's girlfriend cheated on him (with a best friend, maybe?) and now he's on a self-destructive rampage of booze and one-night stands.

submissions

Elliott Smith – The Biggest Lie Lyrics

21 years ago

I took the oppostie view from facedownowls... I believe that the narrator has freed someone from a dysfunctional relationship. She needed to get out and the imagery of the lyrics "I'm waiting for the train/the subway that only goes one way/the stupid thing that will come to pull us apart/and make everybody late" gives me the impression that they'd come to a point in their relationship where they wanted different things and were going in two different directions. Maybe she asked him if he wanted her to stay and he told her that he didn’t. I used to think that he told her that he loved her when he really didn’t, but the mood of the song feels like loss, not guilt. Lyrics can take on a whole new meaning when you change the tone of the music, and Smith’s music says it all. My take on the lie is that she asked him if he loved her and he said no. So she left, and he regrets letting her go. His biggest lie was saying “I don’t love you”.

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