Elliott Smith, "Baby Britain" (1998)

(listen)

I love the way this slips into its '60s garb so determinedly and yet manages not to be particularly heavy-handed about it, at least not so to me. It's a lovely, spirited melody delivered up in a breathy Alex Chilton hush, weaving its way around a lovely acoustic piano, jangly band, smoky organ chords at the bridge, like it's sauntering in a park on a lovely warm spring day, playing stop-motion on a hazy black and white French New Wave morning in America. The words are a bit hard to pick out, going by rather quickly, but it's hard to resist attempting to at least hum along, it's such a pretty little thing. Smith's music still tends to make me sad before anything else because of the way he went—not sure when I'm going to get past it either, because obviously there are huge depressive strains all through his work. But here, where the music seems notably cheerful, it creates a tension that can about break my heart, heard in the right circumstances. That's the main pleasure of it for me. And, given that it was the single from the XO album, I'm pretty sure they had some idea what they had too. Then again, actually paying close attention to the words (for the first time) discloses somewhat less tension on that score: "The light was on but it was dim / Revolver's been turned over / And now it's ready once again / The radio is playing 'Crimson and Clover' / London Bridge is safe and sound / No matter what you keep repeating / Nothing's gonna drag me down / To a death that's not worth cheating." Hm. Well, but anyway it sounds happy!