WEBVTT 00:00:08.300 --> 00:00:12.100 [Music: Elliott Smith “2:45 AM”] 00:00:12.100 --> 00:00:16.980 Elliott Smith: Oh, definitely. Yeah, there's a bunch of Elvis Costello records that like... 00:00:16.990 --> 00:00:20.610 when I was in high school, just made all the difference 00:00:20.610 --> 00:00:26.070 between feeling like a total freak and feeling like ... only a freak. 00:00:26.070 --> 00:00:28.660 [laughter] 00:00:28.660 --> 00:00:31.400 A freak among other freaks. 00:00:31.400 --> 00:00:39.200 [Music:Elliott Smith: "2:45 AM"] 00:00:39.200 --> 00:00:46.180 >> Barney Hoskyns: Tell me how your very distinctive, soft vocal style kind of emerged. 00:00:46.180 --> 00:00:49.220 >> Elliott Smith: I didn't like how I sounded singing in my band, 00:00:49.220 --> 00:00:52.380 but it was hard to sing like how I wanted to because 00:00:52.380 --> 00:00:57.760 playing live I had to just be at the top of my lungs all the time, 00:00:57.760 --> 00:01:02.120 and it made me sound like I had a really bad cold or something. 00:01:02.120 --> 00:01:08.360 It sounds really hoarse and kind of macho and weird. [laughs] 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, 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, 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, 00:01:23.230 --> 00:01:26.540 because it's kind of a drag to be playing a kind of music 00:01:26.540 --> 00:01:29.520 that you don't really like as much as another kind. 00:01:29.520 --> 00:01:33.000 >> [Music] 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:36.440 >> Barney Hoskyns: Obviously some people have given you some sort of folk music tag 00:01:36.450 --> 00:01:39.420 and it just seems to me to be pretty off the mark. 00:01:39.420 --> 00:01:41.680 >> Elliott Smith: Yeah, that really bothered me right at first, 00:01:41.680 --> 00:01:45.160 when I first started playing, people would be like, “Paul Simon.” 00:01:45.160 --> 00:01:48.860 I'd be like, “I don't feel like I'm anything like Paul Simon.” 00:01:48.860 --> 00:01:49.880 >> Barney Hoskyns: And in some ways… 00:01:49.880 --> 00:01:51.180 >> Elliott Smith: Thank you. Oh, iced tea. 00:01:51.180 --> 00:01:52.960 >> Waitress: Do you want me to get you Cokes? They didn't have any. 00:01:52.960 --> 00:01:56.480 >> Elliott Smith: No, that's fine, iced tea is great, thank you. 00:01:56.480 --> 00:02:00.480 >> Barney Hoskyns: How much of your writing about, let's not call them addicts, 00:02:00.480 --> 00:02:01.820 let's call them dependents. 00:02:01.820 --> 00:02:04.800 How much of that is based on subjective experience 00:02:04.810 --> 00:02:08.630 and how much is just based on being an observer? 00:02:08.630 --> 00:02:11.670 >> Elliott Smith: I'm definitely in them, but on the other hand 00:02:11.670 --> 00:02:13.780 it's not like a diary or anything. 00:02:13.780 --> 00:02:16.240 But, yeah, it's good to call them dependents, 00:02:16.240 --> 00:02:22.860 because that was the point, as opposed to them being songs strictly about drugs or… 00:02:22.860 --> 00:02:28.220 There's lots of ways people can be dependent on another person, or drugs, or... 00:02:28.220 --> 00:02:30.960 >> [Music: Elliott Smith “BETWEEN THE BARS”] 00:02:30.960 --> 00:02:34.840 >> Elliott Smith: I think everybody has that... Those two irreconcilable ... 00:02:34.840 --> 00:02:37.680 >> Barney Hoskyns: Impulses. >> Elliott Smith: Constant… 00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:44.240 Doing battle with themselves that way, every day, all the time and sometimes it sucks, 00:02:44.240 --> 00:02:52.900 but other times it results in people making sort of a dream comprehensible to someone else 00:02:52.900 --> 00:02:59.740 People are so… seem so chaotic internally, but being filtered through some form 00:02:59.740 --> 00:03:05.620 like making a record, sort of filters it down into something that can be understood. 00:03:05.620 --> 00:03:10.700 It's hard to represent chaos, or like an absence of something. 00:03:10.700 --> 00:03:16.600 It's much easier to represent the presence of something or a situation. 00:03:16.600 --> 00:03:20.200 People can be chaos but it's hard to fit it 00:03:20.200 --> 00:03:23.820 into some creative piece that you made. It's hard. 00:03:23.830 --> 00:03:30.160 >> [Music: Elliott Smith “Either/Or”] 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 00:03:34.880 --> 00:03:42.420 to juggle sweetness and pain. Is it too easy to say 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? 00:03:48.020 --> 00:03:53.480 >> Elliott Smith: Yeah, they don't make me sad or feel sorrowful to me, 00:03:53.480 --> 00:03:58.460 but on the other hand I’m not… a lot of people are kind of depressed. 00:03:58.460 --> 00:04:02.180 I'm happy some of the time, and some of the time I'm not. 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 00:04:07.680 --> 00:04:12.540 it’s usually happy and sad at the same time. 00:04:12.540 --> 00:04:18.120 But, yeah, certain songs just feel a way that's hard to put into words 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. 00:04:26.820 --> 00:04:29.660 >> [Music] 00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:33.760 >> Barney Hoskyns: You lived in these very different parts of America. 00:04:33.770 --> 00:04:39.940 Dallas, Portland, Brooklyn, is a kind of interesting triangle, there. 00:04:39.940 --> 00:04:45.200 >> Elliott Smith: Yeah, actually, I've been thinking about moving somewhere, out of the US, maybe, 00:04:45.210 --> 00:04:47.100 just to get out of here. 00:04:47.100 --> 00:04:49.199 >> Barney Hoskyns: Whereabouts are you thinking of going? 00:04:49.199 --> 00:04:52.919 >> Elliott Smith: I don't know, I have no idea. 00:04:52.919 --> 00:04:56.419 Somewhere where people aren't so mad would be nice 00:04:56.420 --> 00:04:58.760 but I don't know if there is anywhere like that. 00:04:58.760 --> 00:05:02.360 Who knows?