I'm sitting in Win's apartment in Manhattan. It's still dark out. I can't sleep; there's the slightest hint of a hangover. The sky is getting bluer through the windows.

I fell in love with Elliott Smith in London, five years ago. We'd plug Jessica's tape player into my little speakers and listen to Either/Or. The music didn't really suffer from the lo-fi sound quality. Then we got tickets to go see him at London University. I went out and got xo, which had just been released. I listened to it nonstop during our weekend trip to Edinburgh. I had just started dating Colleen and that album pretty much accompanied the early, fitful stages of the relationship. It's still hard to listen to xo without thinking of London, without thinking of her.

On the night of the show, late in November, we were lined up outside the student union, waiting to be let in. A small, rather unkempt man walked past me carrying a setlist. It was Elliott. I saw that the first song was "Independence Day". At that show, there was none of the shakiness, flubbed notes, or mumbling people talked about in the last days. He tore through a long set and an encore in front of a packed house. His backup band, and opening act, was Quasi. When they launched into "Baby Britain" I went apeshit.

The music was cresting.

Figure 8, when it came out a year and a half later, sounded like the downslope of that crest. Even the triumphant songs sounded somehow like fugues. Colleen and I had broken up, and Figure 8 is a breakup album. You could say that all his albums are breakup albums.

The other day, on the way down to Philadelphia, we listened to Revolver, and the obvious parallels to Smith's songwriting were on full display. We even pointed out the moments that he obviously liked best, because you could hear them in his songs. It takes a lot of talent to borrow musically without stealing, to be suggestive but not derivative. Especially with the fucking Beatles, especially with fucking Revolver. And "She Said She Said" marked the first and only time all three of us have been singing in the van at once.

They're going to do the whole Jeff Buckley, posthumous-release thing. From A Basement On The Hill will come out, then other stuff, live stuff, previously unreleased stuff. You might be waiting for me to say this is all a bad idea and terribly exploitative, but I have a hard time seeing how. I guess I'm grateful for whatever we're going to get, now.

Jesus. What a fucked year.

I've got static in my head
the reflected sound of everything
tried to go to where it led
but it didn't lead to anything

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