Free Elliott Smith's XO by Matthew LeMay Page B

earlier versions as “the two of you’s a study in making total opposites match.” The equation of “making opposites match” and “amateur acting” speaks to the clumsy impossibility of uniting opposites. In an earlier verse, Smith describes a strip club (where the mother works as a “pretty dancer”) as “a place where lonely men pay to make their opposites match,” casting an air of sleaze and desperation on the very (impossible) idea of reconciling opposites. Opposing ideas can coexist—and often do in Smith’s lyrics—but they can never match.
    Though it is among his most philosophically provocative songs, I suspect that Smith never fine-tunedthe lyrics of “Cecilia/Amanda” to his satisfaction. The end of the song’s second verse was refined numerous times, but even the lyrics on the Jackpot! recording seem to fall short of Smith’s standards:
    Every remembrance of you has been buried below
    Every memory that I unhappily know
    The themes are familiar, but the language (especially the parallel use of “remembrance” and “memory”) is unusually clunky. This seems to be the couplet in the song that Smith struggled with the most; in the earliest live version of the song, Smith sang “She ain’t got a father now ’cause he’s buried below / Way up high in the sky with all the people she knows.” Given Smith’s tendency to abandon and reapproach songs, there does exist a chance that “Cecilia/Amanda” might have been picked up and completed for another album. As it stands, “Cecilia/Amanda” is a poignant realization of Smith’s attitude toward potential, its very incompleteness testifying to the vastness of Smith’s talent.
New Monkey [Released on
New Moon]
    “New Monkey” is one of a handful of Smith’s songs that explicitly utilizes the language of drug abuse to broach broader philosophical and emotional issues.Smith begins the song by introducing a “sidewalk boss,” who sees Smith as a “picture of dissatisfaction that he can only see as a junkie.” Smith continues, “though I might be straight as an arrow, he’s busy shaking hands with my monkey.”
    Here, the familiar metaphor of a monkey on one’s back is extended beyond its common association with chemical addiction. What, exactly, is the proverbial monkey on Smith’s back? It isn’t entirely clear. The song’s chorus—“anything is better than nothing”—suggests that this vagary is not unintentional; Smith applies the language of addiction to any behavior that goes against reason, be it substance abuse, self-destruction, or ill-advised romantic pursuits. The last verse of “New Monkey” is more specific in its unexpected allusion to the songwriting process:
    I’m here with my cup, afraid to look up
    This is how I spend my time
    Lazing around, head hanging down
    Stuck inside my imagination
    Busy making something from nothing
    Pictures of hope and depression
    Anything is better than nothing
    Here, the split between the act of songwriting and the life of the writer is made explicit; Smith is “stuck”inside his imagination, but he is “making something from nothing” (given Smith’s tendency toward self-deprecation in his lyrics, “nothing” may very well be a reference to the singer himself). Similarly, “something”—“pictures of hope and depression”—can be read as Smith’s own songs. Thus, the place of fearful stasis articulated throughout
XO
is also figured as a haven for writerly creativity. It’s an oddly unromantic vision of songwriting that seems in keeping with Smith’s workmanlike approach to the creative process. Songwriting, like anything else, is something to do—and it’s a lot better than some of its alternatives.
“Memory Lane” [Released on
From a Basement on the Hill]
    “Memory Lane” was officially released on 2004’s posthumous
From a Basement on the Hill,
but the song was originally slated for inclusion on
XO.
Thematically, it is a handy summation of Smith’s suspect