Last Call had more than 4 tracks: "Most of it was straight double tracking. Two guitars, two vocals. Towards the end, there's a song, "Last Call," which has more stuff going on. That was 4 tracks of guitars bounced down to two on another cassette and I put that cassette into the recorder [and added two more tracks]." Elliott Smith: on the joy of recording, Tape Op, Mar/Apr '97
Pulled this from the footnotes in the Shultz article: A tattoo is a formal device found in pop-rock music that Walter Everett (2009, 151) defines as "a short, one-phrase [instrumental] unit that may reappear as if to bring the song back into focus, perhaps to call extra attention to the following verse or, if the phrase had functioned as the sona's introduction, to make it seem as if we are off to a fresh start." I've been a musician in some capacity or another for over 20 years and had never heard that either lol. interesting.
incredible find ! guess I should really be checking footnotes lol. it's actually such a precise, perfect term to describe that little riff in this song.
From a technical standpoint, this song, perhaps more than any other, demonstrates why Elliott Smith is perhaps the most technically gifted song writer of all time and it's not even close and it's plain for any to see, especially broken down as you've done here, bravo.
Your videos deserve more attention, so good! Glad to see your inclusion of the Tonal Pairing paper, I’ve been talking about it for 3 years now, never seen anyone talk about it.
for me, as a musician, one of the things elliott used compositionally that made his music so interesting was unusual or surprising chords. the A here, the Cm in Say Yes, the little chromatic runs in the beginning of Everything Reminds Me of Her, and i'm sure many others i could think of if i ran through his catalog really quickly.
I believe the use of "tattoo" means the same thing as motif, a staple melody in a song that is typically progressively made more complicated but maintained throughout the song. You do a fantastic job man.
My god, you did an excellent and passionate job that the true hardcore Elliott's fans can really appreciate. His lyrical style is my favourite of all time along with Kurt Cobain's. And he was the master at using those weird tunings and chords and selecting the specific strings to play and mute, and it's even more mindblowing he cold sing on top of that when performing live. And you can hear his influence on Phoebe Bridgers/Boygenius "all over the place" (unintentional fitting quote from the song 🙂). His harmonic choices were always even better than the best you could imagine as a songwriting nerd.
what i think makes your guitar tutorials special is that you go into the history behind each song. Thats a lot of work that you normally wouldnt see guitar youtubers do, it's like every one of your tutorials is a small video essay. I love it man, and plz plz plz, keep it up. You'll get the subscriber count you deserve eventually. But just know, for people like me, this stuff is valuable.
Thank you, Miles, this is fantastic, like all your other breakdown vids. I could never put my finger on why the opening felt "wobbly" to me, for lack of a better term, but this makes that feeling make sense. Really looking forward to Alameda which is one of my personal faves. So much respect for the care and thought that you put into these projects!
An alt rock masterpiece. One to which I didn’t ascribe much value upon my first few listens. Now i’d say it’s probably in my top five Elliott Smith songs. The melodic vocal lines in the last chorus are hauntingly melancholic
yesss! though i think self-titled is my absolute favorite, "Either/Or" will always have an extremely special place in my heart as the record that made me fall in love with Elliott's music. so excited to get into these videos. amazing job on all your stuff! happy new year!
Really enjoying your videos, you make the content nerdy but not too nerdy so the video retains its context. You're skirting that line perfectly. Your video production quality is good too! Thanks for the effort.
Something most people probably dont know is that a lot of people on heroin tend to use meth regularly. Im gonna say that opening is about smoking speed while on heroin to get back in the game. i feel pretty confident in that. I have never smoked meth but a friend of mine a few days ago was talking about how he always liked the sound of smoking it from a light bulb like a high crackling sound. could be those sweet high notes echoing back. light bulbs sometimes do make a ringing sound when they get hot and cool down fast. that could be a reference to the effects though and not a literal sound. cathedral with glass stained black? burnt pipe/lightbulb/whatever youre using to get the job done. i think the "he" is referring to the meth not an actual person. he's happy to be there for you when you need to get back up from being "underneath the horse" so to speak. destroying the master could mean the self destruction of the person doing it or it could be talking about overcoming the effects of the heroin/the master/ the drug thats really in control here. i could be off the mark but like i said i feel pretty confident thats whats going on in those opening lines YEAH. Great videos. I just came across the alameda video and started poking around. Just so happens i was trying to figure this song out yesterday. I did a pretty good job by ear haha. Always good to get a second opinion though! I will definitely be back for more.
Thanks so much for doing these Album breakdowns! They are such a brilliant deep dive into Elliots history and. songwriting. I'll be buying the tab again when it's all done. Cheers
There’s been a lot of folks that have said Elliott’s music sounds easy to play until you get to it and see how intricate it is. I’ve always thought this song was easy, until you just broke it down and I’m mind blown 🤯
Great breakdown of the song and his recording processes. It’s true that lo-fi has a charm, but usually that’s by necessity rather than intention. Thank the music gods he got to do proper studio recordings because Figure 8 is one of the best sounding, polished albums of all time. It almost has a Steely Dan type production quality.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, MILES!!! I'M VERY EXCITED TO LEARN (and realearn, why not?) THIS SONG AND ALL THE OTHERS!! ngl i'm REALLY anxious to see Angeles, cause I >THINK< that i can play it, but some things sound a bit off...
I didn't really understand open tunings but I can see at least with Elliott you can do a lot of stuff with your melodies around the guitar more fluidly. Not sure if I'm accurate on that, but awesome analysis!
Hell yes this was excellent, weird though when i look up Open C tuning (on youtube) it has the high string as E instead of C, that threw me off for a bit my chorus sounded so bad lol...so is this true Open C or what? playthrough was everything thanks again, if you wouldnt mind numbering frets on ur diagram thatd be lovely
What tuning is this in? There is no indication in the tutorial section at the end. Thanks :) Will you do Angel in the snow at some point? One of my favourites of Elliott
The tuning is Open C - It's at the beginning of the "Guitar Part" section! I'd love to get to New Moon, but Roman Candle will be next 🤘 Thanks for watching!
Hey idk If I'll get any comments on this but I'd greatly appreciate some help regarding the song. I'm trying to learn it but the chords don't sound similar enough. Is it Open C tuning? That's what I'm playing in and everything online says it's in Open C. But that tuning doesn't sound like it does in the playthrough.
Always down to try and help! Yep it’s in open C like it says throughout the video, so that’s (low)C, G, C, E, G, C(high). Is there a specific part that’s sounding different? If you let me know with a timestamp I’ll be glad to help further
@@_E_S_P Thanks so much for replying and helping! Yeah, specific parts do sound different. Here they are: ruclips.net/video/mZXzsYhsta0/видео.htmlsi=sBeFB6Uqgt1fwfGl&t=710 This sounds a bit different and the chord sequence 3 seconds later (t=713) sounds especially different. ruclips.net/video/mZXzsYhsta0/видео.htmlsi=KyHz_17TJ1o5EE9m&t=736 Here it sounds whiny for some reason. But if I move my pinky to the high G string instead it sounds like the video. I've tried this on different guitars and they all encounter the same problem. I have no idea why it sounds different, maybe it's just me?
@@stevesaturn2592 These chords can be challenging to play. Without being able to hear or see an example, I’d guess the low open C tuning is making certain shapes sound out of tune, buzz, etc. It takes practice to fret and strum them in a way that produces clear tone. It’s harder on some guitars than others. If you want to take a short recording of the problem chords, upload it unlisted and share the link, I could give more specific pointers - but if you find a way that sounds good to you, you should rock that !
Apparently the "cathedral with the glass stained black" is a reference to St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague (the same place photo of the statues on the cover of Untitled were taken by JJ Gonson). Have you never watched the Edinburgh Military Tattoo? It's like a parade of pipers and drummers, so I assume they mean regimented rhythm? I'm such a Speed Trials hater! Starting an album with the slowest song is such a musical contrarian move, as much of a contrarian move as going from Waltz 01 to Amity on XO. It was the first track I came across when someone told me to listen to Elliott. And I skipped it after a couple seconds, listened to Say Yes, and the rest was history. It's a good live electric song, when he was backed by Quasi in 98, or with Sam, Shon and Scott in 2000. But I would MUCH rather had Going Nowhere or New Disaster on E/O than Speed Trials.
5:30 I've always thought the lyric was "he's pleased to meet you underneath the *hearse* in the cathedral.." Wouldn't that make more sense than "horse"? A hearse is a vehicle that carries dead bodies to a church for funerals.
I love that Elliott didn’t care about his records sounding “authentic”. He just wanted to do the best he could.
masterful at making the most of what he had !
But to it is special for not being so overproduced... it sounds more authentic.
I finally found someone who geeks out on this song as hard as I do
I toned it down for the video
@@_E_S_Ptone it up! You're a modern hero
Last Call had more than 4 tracks:
"Most of it was straight double tracking. Two guitars, two vocals. Towards the end, there's a song, "Last Call," which has more stuff going on. That was 4 tracks of guitars bounced down to two on another cassette and I put that cassette into the recorder [and added two more tracks]." Elliott Smith: on the joy of recording, Tape Op, Mar/Apr '97
Pulled this from the footnotes in the Shultz article:
A tattoo is a formal device found in pop-rock music that Walter Everett (2009, 151) defines as "a short, one-phrase [instrumental] unit that may reappear as if to bring the song back into focus, perhaps to call extra attention to the following verse or, if the phrase had functioned as the sona's introduction, to make it seem as if we are off to a fresh start."
I've been a musician in some capacity or another for over 20 years and had never heard that either lol. interesting.
incredible find ! guess I should really be checking footnotes lol. it's actually such a precise, perfect term to describe that little riff in this song.
From a technical standpoint, this song, perhaps more than any other, demonstrates why Elliott Smith is perhaps the most technically gifted song writer of all time and it's not even close and it's plain for any to see, especially broken down as you've done here, bravo.
Great way to start off the New Year😉
The perfect way to kick off 2024 😎
Your videos deserve more attention, so good! Glad to see your inclusion of the Tonal Pairing paper, I’ve been talking about it for 3 years now, never seen anyone talk about it.
for me, as a musician, one of the things elliott used compositionally that made his music so interesting was unusual or surprising chords. the A here, the Cm in Say Yes, the little chromatic runs in the beginning of Everything Reminds Me of Her, and i'm sure many others i could think of if i ran through his catalog really quickly.
Finally a good video on this song, I feel like it’s so overlooked
I believe the use of "tattoo" means the same thing as motif, a staple melody in a song that is typically progressively made more complicated but maintained throughout the song.
You do a fantastic job man.
love the Elliott exposure! my favorite musician
My god, you did an excellent and passionate job that the true hardcore Elliott's fans can really appreciate. His lyrical style is my favourite of all time along with Kurt Cobain's. And he was the master at using those weird tunings and chords and selecting the specific strings to play and mute, and it's even more mindblowing he cold sing on top of that when performing live.
And you can hear his influence on Phoebe Bridgers/Boygenius "all over the place" (unintentional fitting quote from the song 🙂). His harmonic choices were always even better than the best you could imagine as a songwriting nerd.
you cannot believe how much i love that i found your videos! Thanks
what i think makes your guitar tutorials special is that you go into the history behind each song. Thats a lot of work that you normally wouldnt see guitar youtubers do, it's like every one of your tutorials is a small video essay.
I love it man, and plz plz plz, keep it up. You'll get the subscriber count you deserve eventually. But just know, for people like me, this stuff is valuable.
Great video for explaining some more complex theory to us guitar players who only sorta half understand theory.
Thanks for doing this! I bought your book, and i hope can buy the next one too!❤
What book? I want to get it too but I don’t know where, Can you tell?
Thank you, Miles, this is fantastic, like all your other breakdown vids. I could never put my finger on why the opening felt "wobbly" to me, for lack of a better term, but this makes that feeling make sense. Really looking forward to Alameda which is one of my personal faves. So much respect for the care and thought that you put into these projects!
An alt rock masterpiece. One to which I didn’t ascribe much value upon my first few listens. Now i’d say it’s probably in my top five Elliott Smith songs. The melodic vocal lines in the last chorus are hauntingly melancholic
yesss! though i think self-titled is my absolute favorite, "Either/Or" will always have an extremely special place in my heart as the record that made me fall in love with Elliott's music. so excited to get into these videos. amazing job on all your stuff! happy new year!
Awesome stuff as always. I'll definitely be learning this Song the proper way now!
Really enjoying your videos, you make the content nerdy but not too nerdy so the video retains its context. You're skirting that line perfectly. Your video production quality is good too! Thanks for the effort.
Something most people probably dont know is that a lot of people on heroin tend to use meth regularly. Im gonna say that opening is about smoking speed while on heroin to get back in the game. i feel pretty confident in that. I have never smoked meth but a friend of mine a few days ago was talking about how he always liked the sound of smoking it from a light bulb like a high crackling sound. could be those sweet high notes echoing back. light bulbs sometimes do make a ringing sound when they get hot and cool down fast. that could be a reference to the effects though and not a literal sound. cathedral with glass stained black? burnt pipe/lightbulb/whatever youre using to get the job done. i think the "he" is referring to the meth not an actual person. he's happy to be there for you when you need to get back up from being "underneath the horse" so to speak. destroying the master could mean the self destruction of the person doing it or it could be talking about overcoming the effects of the heroin/the master/ the drug thats really in control here.
i could be off the mark but like i said i feel pretty confident thats whats going on in those opening lines YEAH.
Great videos. I just came across the alameda video and started poking around. Just so happens i was trying to figure this song out yesterday. I did a pretty good job by ear haha. Always good to get a second opinion though! I will definitely be back for more.
We need more Elliott Smith videos, great job!!!
Thanks so much for doing these Album breakdowns! They are such a brilliant deep dive into Elliots history and. songwriting. I'll be buying the tab again when it's all done. Cheers
There’s been a lot of folks that have said Elliott’s music sounds easy to play until you get to it and see how intricate it is. I’ve always thought this song was easy, until you just broke it down and I’m mind blown 🤯
@@QQ-vc9wt when I started learning the music the same thing happened to me! It’s why I wanted to make these videos
Great video ! I like those ES facts you add in your videos, I always learn a lot !
Great video! excellent play through and loved the discussion about the song prior. Good job dude!
loved the passion man, great video
Great video! Love the Elliott Smith content!
Basically, I'd love you to make a video for each song on Either/Or. Thank you so much for this, and ciao from Italy :)
Are you doing an Either/Or songbook?
IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE KEEP UP THE CONTENT I LOVE IT💛💛💛
keep them coming. thanks for your efforts
Great breakdown of the song and his recording processes. It’s true that lo-fi has a charm, but usually that’s by necessity rather than intention. Thank the music gods he got to do proper studio recordings because Figure 8 is one of the best sounding, polished albums of all time. It almost has a Steely Dan type production quality.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, MILES!!! I'M VERY EXCITED TO LEARN (and realearn, why not?) THIS SONG AND ALL THE OTHERS!! ngl i'm REALLY anxious to see Angeles, cause I >THINK< that i can play it, but some things sound a bit off...
happy new year ! Thanks for watching
Great video Yo! That song. Still wows me
elliott just loved throwing in A majors and A7s into his C major songs huh
this is such a great video, thank you for this!
Another great video man, thanks for that! happy new years!
I didn't really understand open tunings but I can see at least with Elliott you can do a lot of stuff with your melodies around the guitar more fluidly. Not sure if I'm accurate on that, but awesome analysis!
God bless you cat!
Dope work!
SOLI DEO GLORIA
(To The Glory Of God Alone)
Father, Son & Holy Spirit
-Ronnie
Hell yeah, it's happening again!
Awesome work! Keep it up!!
Thank you!! Love the videos!
You're back!!!
Love this one, man
i love your channel!
Love this song. You can play it in Standard tuning too if you don't want to tune to open C. Made a tutorial couple of years ago.
your channel is so incredible, how did I find it just now?
Love the song, love the video
Are you gonna do roman candle too?
Roman candle is next 🤘🏻
i broke my high e string while learning this, but thanks a lot !!
2:02 my first name is Elliott and i get this shit all the time its kind of crazy
ME TOOOOOOO
Hell yes this was excellent, weird though when i look up Open C tuning (on youtube) it has the high string as E instead of C, that threw me off for a bit my chorus sounded so bad lol...so is this true Open C or what?
playthrough was everything thanks again, if you wouldnt mind numbering frets on ur diagram thatd be lovely
anyone know?
Subscribing on Patreon today
Time for you to tell me everything ive been playing wrong
What tuning is this in? There is no indication in the tutorial section at the end. Thanks :) Will you do Angel in the snow at some point? One of my favourites of Elliott
The tuning is Open C - It's at the beginning of the "Guitar Part" section! I'd love to get to New Moon, but Roman Candle will be next 🤘 Thanks for watching!
What tuning is it in? I don’t think the video said
Open C! I put it in there but it's quick - maybe I should leave it up in future vids!
Hey idk If I'll get any comments on this but I'd greatly appreciate some help regarding the song. I'm trying to learn it but the chords don't sound similar enough. Is it Open C tuning? That's what I'm playing in and everything online says it's in Open C. But that tuning doesn't sound like it does in the playthrough.
Always down to try and help! Yep it’s in open C like it says throughout the video, so that’s (low)C, G, C, E, G, C(high). Is there a specific part that’s sounding different? If you let me know with a timestamp I’ll be glad to help further
@@_E_S_P
Thanks so much for replying and helping!
Yeah, specific parts do sound different. Here they are:
ruclips.net/video/mZXzsYhsta0/видео.htmlsi=sBeFB6Uqgt1fwfGl&t=710
This sounds a bit different and the chord sequence 3 seconds later (t=713) sounds especially different.
ruclips.net/video/mZXzsYhsta0/видео.htmlsi=KyHz_17TJ1o5EE9m&t=736
Here it sounds whiny for some reason. But if I move my pinky to the high G string instead it sounds like the video.
I've tried this on different guitars and they all encounter the same problem. I have no idea why it sounds different, maybe it's just me?
@@stevesaturn2592 These chords can be challenging to play. Without being able to hear or see an example, I’d guess the low open C tuning is making certain shapes sound out of tune, buzz, etc. It takes practice to fret and strum them in a way that produces clear tone. It’s harder on some guitars than others. If you want to take a short recording of the problem chords, upload it unlisted and share the link, I could give more specific pointers - but if you find a way that sounds good to you, you should rock that !
Which guitar did you use?
Apparently the "cathedral with the glass stained black" is a reference to St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague (the same place photo of the statues on the cover of Untitled were taken by JJ Gonson).
Have you never watched the Edinburgh Military Tattoo? It's like a parade of pipers and drummers, so I assume they mean regimented rhythm?
I'm such a Speed Trials hater! Starting an album with the slowest song is such a musical contrarian move, as much of a contrarian move as going from Waltz 01 to Amity on XO.
It was the first track I came across when someone told me to listen to Elliott. And I skipped it after a couple seconds, listened to Say Yes, and the rest was history.
It's a good live electric song, when he was backed by Quasi in 98, or with Sam, Shon and Scott in 2000. But I would MUCH rather had Going Nowhere or New Disaster on E/O than Speed Trials.
5:30 I've always thought the lyric was "he's pleased to meet you underneath the *hearse* in the cathedral.." Wouldn't that make more sense than "horse"? A hearse is a vehicle that carries dead bodies to a church for funerals.