Teenage Genius: The rare Elliott Smith song that was recorded when he was just 14
In the decades since Elliott Smith tragically passed in 2003, his allure and legacy has only blossomed further. He echoes in the new whispering ways of Billie Eilish, his aura hangs over the humility of stars like Courtney Barnett, and Phoebe Bridgers even commented, “[He’s] like The Beatles to me, and I mean that in every way”. That’s a lasting influence that his 14-year-old self could surely never grasp as he sat in his bedroom in pursuit of a feeling that he could bottle in the amber of music.
Smith, whose distinctive vocal style aided his meteoric rise in the 1990s, added a spiritual edge to the era, as well as sonic experimentation. In the studio, he focused much of his attention on multi-tracking to layer his hushed harmonies. Albeit a sensitive soul, Smith battled with his demons, and after being diagnosed with ADHD and major depressive disorder, he began drinking heavily and using drugs regularly.
At the age of 34, the musician was found dead in Los Angeles with two stab wounds to the chest. Inconclusive results gathered from the autopsy meant that investigations were unable to determine if “the wounds were self-inflicted or the result of homicide”. This uncertainty has been the subject of much speculation over the years, and the tragedy of the event is married to his music in his marred legacy. Smith’s death shook the indie rock scene to its core. His devoted fans were left devastated.
This end has been chewed over endlessly in the culture that followed. One film, Heaven Adores You, directed by Nickolas Dylan Rossi and released in 2015, focused on Smith’s life in the three different cities that he lived in during his music career. Arguably the most celebrated film exploring Smith’s life, director Rossi was granted permission to use numerous different songs from his back catalogue. While perusing the reams of recordings Smith made, Rossi also happened upon various rarities and previously unreleased tracks. One of which was the juvenile delight ‘Ocean’, a track Smith recorded when he was just 14 years old.
The song, which was recorded when Smith was living in Texas, was given a premiere on Portland Radio Project while the station interviewed Smith’s filmmaking associate Kevin Moyer: “It’s a song I don’t think anyone has ever heard before,” Moyer said in the interview. “It’s from his Texas days. At the very beginning of the film, we show Texas and his good friend Pickle, Steve Pickering. And it’s basically Elliott when he’s young, before he came to Portland, these guys, they got together, and they were playing music for the sake of playing music.”
Moyer explains: “They were doing Led Zeppelin songs and covers, stuff like that. I think it was a group: Steve Pickering, Steve Smith (who was Elliott before he changed his name), a girl named Kim and another guy named Kevin and a guy named Mark, I think. Different variations of these kids would get together at Steve Pickering’s house and play music and make music.”
“Then Elliott moved, and he came to Portland,” Moyer recalled, “and he wasn’t coming back. He was not going back to Texas. But he would come back to visit, and when they would visit, they would get together and jam. So what started as kids getting together and making music started to turn into actual songwriting, and I think it’s the very start of Elliott writing his own songs.”
Concluding his introduction to ‘Ocean’ by adding: “So this song is something from 1984. Elliott was 14 years old. It’s interesting because it’s one of the first songs that, as they were writing, Elliott would make lyrics for it. It’s keyboards, guitars, and Elliott singing. They did the keyboards and guitars first, and then Elliott came back, and Steve Pickering convinced him, for demo purposes, to sing. I don’t think Elliott was a singer at that point, but they kind of pushed him to sing it, and he did. It’s probably one of the first songs that they did that actually has lyrics.”
The song, naturally, is a touch scratchy, but then, isn’t that the appeal of Smith at the best of times, let alone when it pertains to the musical equivalent of an archaeological miracle? As he said himself: “I liked the idea of a self-contained, endless pursuit of perfection. But I have a problem with perfection. I don’t think perfection is very artful. But there’s something I liked about the image of a skater going in a twisted circle that doesn’t have any real endpoint. So the object is not to stop or arrive anywhere; it’s just to make this thing as beautiful as they can.” That is seemingly a venture that he was always on the hunt for, even as a greasy teenager.
Listen to ‘Ocean’ below.
