1 00:00:08,300 --> 00:00:12,100 [Music: Elliott Smith “2:45 AM”] 2 00:00:12,100 --> 00:00:16,980 Elliott Smith: Oh, definitely. Yeah, there's a bunch of Elvis Costello records that like... 3 00:00:16,990 --> 00:00:20,610 when I was in high school, just made all the difference 4 00:00:20,610 --> 00:00:26,070 between feeling like a total freak and feeling like ... only a freak. 5 00:00:26,070 --> 00:00:28,660 [laughter] 6 00:00:28,660 --> 00:00:31,400 A freak among other freaks. 7 00:00:31,400 --> 00:00:39,200 [Music:Elliott Smith: "2:45 AM"] 8 00:00:39,200 --> 00:00:46,180 >> Barney Hoskyns: Tell me how your very distinctive, soft vocal style kind of emerged. 9 00:00:46,180 --> 00:00:49,220 >> Elliott Smith: I didn't like how I sounded singing in my band, 10 00:00:49,220 --> 00:00:52,380 but it was hard to sing like how I wanted to because 11 00:00:52,380 --> 00:00:57,760 playing live I had to just be at the top of my lungs all the time, 12 00:00:57,760 --> 00:01:02,120 and it made me sound like I had a really bad cold or something. 13 00:01:02,120 --> 00:01:08,360 It sounds really hoarse and kind of macho and weird. [laughs] 14 00:01:08,360 --> 00:01:14,060 I mean I've been doing four-track songs by myself since I was like a teenager, 15 00:01:14,060 --> 00:01:18,280 where I'd sing in a way that I ... I just didn't think other people would like it, 16 00:01:18,280 --> 00:01:23,230 so I didn't play it for them but eventually I got over that, which I'm happy that I did, 17 00:01:23,230 --> 00:01:26,540 because it's kind of a drag to be playing a kind of music 18 00:01:26,540 --> 00:01:29,520 that you don't really like as much as another kind. 19 00:01:29,520 --> 00:01:33,000 >> [Music] 20 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:36,440 >> Barney Hoskyns: Obviously some people have given you some sort of folk music tag 21 00:01:36,450 --> 00:01:39,420 and it just seems to me to be pretty off the mark. 22 00:01:39,420 --> 00:01:41,680 >> Elliott Smith: Yeah, that really bothered me right at first, 23 00:01:41,680 --> 00:01:45,160 when I first started playing, people would be like, “Paul Simon.” 24 00:01:45,160 --> 00:01:48,860 I'd be like, “I don't feel like I'm anything like Paul Simon.” 25 00:01:48,860 --> 00:01:49,880 >> Barney Hoskyns: And in some ways… 26 00:01:49,880 --> 00:01:51,180 >> Elliott Smith: Thank you. Oh, iced tea. 27 00:01:51,180 --> 00:01:52,960 >> Waitress: Do you want me to get you Cokes? They didn't have any. 28 00:01:52,960 --> 00:01:56,480 >> Elliott Smith: No, that's fine, iced tea is great, thank you. 29 00:01:56,480 --> 00:02:00,480 >> Barney Hoskyns: How much of your writing about, let's not call them addicts, 30 00:02:00,480 --> 00:02:01,820 let's call them dependents. 31 00:02:01,820 --> 00:02:04,800 How much of that is based on subjective experience 32 00:02:04,810 --> 00:02:08,630 and how much is just based on being an observer? 33 00:02:08,630 --> 00:02:11,670 >> Elliott Smith: I'm definitely in them, but on the other hand 34 00:02:11,670 --> 00:02:13,780 it's not like a diary or anything. 35 00:02:13,780 --> 00:02:16,240 But, yeah, it's good to call them dependents, 36 00:02:16,240 --> 00:02:22,860 because that was the point, as opposed to them being songs strictly about drugs or… 37 00:02:22,860 --> 00:02:28,220 There's lots of ways people can be dependent on another person, or drugs, or... 38 00:02:28,220 --> 00:02:30,960 >> [Music: Elliott Smith “BETWEEN THE BARS”] 39 00:02:30,960 --> 00:02:34,840 >> Elliott Smith: I think everybody has that... Those two irreconcilable ... 40 00:02:34,840 --> 00:02:37,680 >> Barney Hoskyns: Impulses. >> Elliott Smith: Constant… 41 00:02:37,680 --> 00:02:44,240 Doing battle with themselves that way, every day, all the time and sometimes it sucks, 42 00:02:44,240 --> 00:02:52,900 but other times it results in people making sort of a dream comprehensible to someone else 43 00:02:52,900 --> 00:02:59,740 People are so… seem so chaotic internally, but being filtered through some form 44 00:02:59,740 --> 00:03:05,620 like making a record, sort of filters it down into something that can be understood. 45 00:03:05,620 --> 00:03:10,700 It's hard to represent chaos, or like an absence of something. 46 00:03:10,700 --> 00:03:16,600 It's much easier to represent the presence of something or a situation. 47 00:03:16,600 --> 00:03:20,200 People can be chaos but it's hard to fit it 48 00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:23,820 into some creative piece that you made. It's hard. 49 00:03:23,830 --> 00:03:30,160 >> [Music: Elliott Smith “Either/Or”] 50 00:03:30,160 --> 00:03:34,880 >> Barney Hoskyns: Listening to Either/Or, I was kind of struck by how well it does manage 51 00:03:34,880 --> 00:03:42,420 to juggle sweetness and pain. Is it too easy to say 52 00:03:42,420 --> 00:03:48,020 these songs are kind of melancholy, there's a lot of sorrowful quality to Elliott Smith's music? 53 00:03:48,020 --> 00:03:53,480 >> Elliott Smith: Yeah, they don't make me sad or feel sorrowful to me, 54 00:03:53,480 --> 00:03:58,460 but on the other hand I’m not… a lot of people are kind of depressed. 55 00:03:58,460 --> 00:04:02,180 I'm happy some of the time, and some of the time I'm not. 56 00:04:02,180 --> 00:04:07,680 But like when I see a movie, for example, that I really like, that moves me or whatever 57 00:04:07,680 --> 00:04:12,540 it’s usually happy and sad at the same time. 58 00:04:12,540 --> 00:04:18,120 But, yeah, certain songs just feel a way that's hard to put into words 59 00:04:18,120 --> 00:04:26,820 and it's not happy and it's also not really sad but I couldn't say what it is. 60 00:04:26,820 --> 00:04:29,660 >> [Music] 61 00:04:31,120 --> 00:04:33,760 >> Barney Hoskyns: You lived in these very different parts of America. 62 00:04:33,770 --> 00:04:39,940 Dallas, Portland, Brooklyn, is a kind of interesting triangle, there. 63 00:04:39,940 --> 00:04:45,200 >> Elliott Smith: Yeah, actually, I've been thinking about moving somewhere, out of the US, maybe, 64 00:04:45,210 --> 00:04:47,100 just to get out of here. 65 00:04:47,100 --> 00:04:49,199 >> Barney Hoskyns: Whereabouts are you thinking of going? 66 00:04:49,199 --> 00:04:52,919 >> Elliott Smith: I don't know, I have no idea. 67 00:04:52,919 --> 00:04:56,419 Somewhere where people aren't so mad would be nice 68 00:04:56,420 --> 00:04:58,760 but I don't know if there is anywhere like that. 69 00:04:58,760 --> 00:05:02,360 Who knows?