| Elliott Smith – Pitseleh Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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This is one of my favourite songs by Elliott Smith. I think it's a very bitter song, almost scathing in tone, about Elliott feeling that he isn't enough for 'Pitseleh', whoever that is. I think the "I've got a joke I've been dying to tell you" bit is what makes me think the lyrics are bitter, especially how the word 'dying' links in to the next bit about 'the silent kid' (maybe an odd kid they used to know who didn't talk much?) and I think it's about this kid shooting himself. (Elliott wrote a lot about suicide in his songs, sometimes in a yearning way, and 'to make the noise I kept so quiet' makes me think that he's keeping his own thoughts of suicide quiet) "I'm so angry, I don't think it'll ever pass." Obviously Smith has some pent up frustration, perhaps linking in with the depression he suffered from, that feels everlasting. "I'm not half what I wish I was" is another very self-deprecating line - I think the scathing tone of this song is directed at himself more than 'Pitseleh' who he feels he isn't good enough for. "Before you do as the devil pleases / and give up the thing you love." I think here maybe Smith is saying that he's done something bad due to the pressures in his life ("to see how much you can stand") and this sin of his has lost him something he loves, perhaps Pitseleh? It's like he loves this person but can't be with them because he's not good enough and he is lamenting this. I wish I could write songs like he can... he's a truly wonderful lyricist. RIP Elliott! |
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| Elliott Smith – Baby Britain Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Well here's my personal analysis... Baby Britain appears to be a woman who is a bitter, attention-seeking and had a dependency on alcohol to feel good ("feels best floating over a sea of vodka") Smith talks about this woman in a very negative tone, so it could be said that he resents her, but when he says "we knocked another couple back" we then know that he still spends time with this woman. (Perhaps what he resents in her is also what he doesn't like in himself?) Baby Britain seems unable to deal with her own problems, so makes them up to be problems beyond her that she cannot solve ("fights problems with bigger problems") and, in frequent references to the sea Elliott puts across how little of a grip she has on dealing with her own life ("counts the waves that somehow didn't hit her" "you're out swimming in the flood") He also describes alcohol as something aggressive and violent by making them out to be like soldiers ("the dead soldiers lined up on the table/still prepared for an attack/they didn't know they'd been disabled") It's like alcohol is something they need to fight against by drinking it, a twisted logic for sure. The most interesting line for me is definitely "For someone half as smart you'd be a work of art." This makes me think that perhaps Baby Britain feels compelled to put herself above others, perhaps people who aren't as 'messed up' as she is, like she's putting herself up on a pedestal for her problems. |
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