FROM A BASEMENT ON THE HILL

'''From a Basement on the Hill''' is the sixth studio album by the late singer-songwriter Elliott Smith. Released posthumously on October 19, 2004 by ANTI- Records in CD, double LP, and digital download, it peaked at #19 in the US and #41 in the UK.
''Basement'' was incomplete at the time of Smith's death. Smith's family hired his former producer Rob Schnapf and ex-girlfriend Joanna Bolme to sort through and put the finishing touches on the batch of over 30 songs that were recorded for the album. Although Smith had stated many times that he wanted ''Basement'' to be a double album, contractual obligations with the singer's former label DreamWorks (now Interscope) prevented them from releasing a double album on an independent label. Thus, a 15 track album was assembled and released. Many of the songs Smith intended for the album remained unfinished, in many cases lacking vocals.

Contents

Controversy

Track listing

Track information

Outtakes, B-sides, non-album tracks

Other songs from this era

Personnel

References

Controversy

David McConnell, although there through much of the actual recording process save Smith's last year of working on the record, was not consulted during the mixing, nor was he asked for the extensive "three years' worth" of notes he and Smith had made while the album was being recorded.^[1] The producer also noted that the track "Ostriches & Chirping", a short instrumental made from sampling and looping the noises made by a toy bird, had nothing to do with Smith and was something that McConnell had recorded by himself. McConnell said: "...don't ask me how this ended up on the record, I totally forgot I had put that on one of his reels."^[2]
When asked what he believed the late Smith would think of the released version of the album, McConnell told Benjamin Nugent, "I don't think he would have delivered [that] record. The record he would have delivered would have had more songs, would have had different mixes and [been] a little more in-your-face."¹ Schnapf also expressed that the final result that he and Bolme had produced was not the album that Smith would have made, simply because Elliott was not around to finish the album. Schnapf also said that they did not add anything to the songs, and only mixed whatever had been recorded: "I would never presume to add anything. We didn't add anything."^[3]
Jennifer Chiba, Elliott Smith's live-in girlfriend at the time of his death, was also not consulted while the album was being finalized, although the singer had spent hundreds of hours talking to her about his directions for the record (''Spin'', Dec. 2004).
Some fans accuse Smith's family and the producers of cutting from the album the darkest songs (such as "True Love", which deals graphically with addiction and rehab, "Abused", and "Suicide Machine") in an attempt to make the album "happier", an accusation that has been denied. It should be noted that several songs on the officially released album do deal with darker subject matters.

Track listing

All songs written by Elliott Smith except as noted.
#"Coast to Coast" – 5:33
#"Let's Get Lost" – 2:27
#"Pretty (Ugly Before)" – 4:45
#"Don't Go Down" – 4:34
#"Strung Out Again" – 3:12
#"A Fond Farewell" – 3:58
#"King's Crossing" – 4:57
#"Ostriches & Chirping" (David McConnell) – 0:33
#"Twilight" – 4:29
#"A Passing Feeling" – 3:22
#"The Last Hour" – 3:27
#"Shooting Star" – 6:01
#"Memory Lane" – 2:30
#"Little One" – 3:14
#"A Distorted Reality Is Now a Necessity to Be Free" – 4:32

Track information

★ "Coast to Coast" features poetry by Nelson Gary. Smith told ''Under the Radar'' in 2003, "I asked this friend of mine to make up something he could say as fast as he could in fifteen minutes about people healing themselves or being unable to heal themselves. While he's saying this thing there is a main vocal that goes over that."

★ "Pretty (Ugly Before)" previously appeared on a 2003 single on Suicide Squeeze Records, along with a different version of "A Distorted Reality Is Now a Necessity to Be Free". According to McConnell, Smith did not intend to have "Pretty (Ugly Before)" on the album.

★ In "King's Crossing", after Smith sings "give me one good reason not to do it", a woman's voice (Jennifer Chiba) can be faintly heard saying, "Because we love you."

★ "Twilight" was originally entitled "Somebody's Baby".

★ If the song "Little One" is played backwards, one can hear some acoustic guitar lines as they were originally recorded, unreversed.

Outtakes, B-sides, non-album tracks

The following songs were known to have been written and in various stages of recording (with some fully completed) during the ''Basement'' era, but were ultimately not included on the 2004 album:
;Officially released:

★ A Distorted Reality is Now a Necessity To Be Free (alternate version, found on the ''"Pretty (Ugly Before)"'' single.
;Posthumously and unofficially released:

★ "Abused" – vocals recorded over the ''Either/Or'' outtake from 1996

★ "Dancing on the Highway" – two alternate mixes exist

★ "Everything's Okay" – a reworking of the ''Either/Or'' outtake "Pretty Mary K" (not to be confused with the song of the same name on ''Figure 8''), which appears on ''New Moon''

★ "From a Poison Well" - a reworking of the track "First Timer", which appears on New Moon

★ "Let's Turn the Record Over"

★ "Mr. Goodmorning" – instrumental only, vocals said to have been recorded

★ "See You in Heaven" – instrumental only, said to have never had vocals completed

★ "Stickman" – two alternate versions

★ "True Love" – one rough mix; another featuring more coherent vocal takes
;Unreleased:

★ "Don't Go Down" (alternate version)

★ "Suicide Machine" – vocals recorded over the ''Figure 8'' outtake "Tiny Time Machine"; said to be the last song Smith worked on
;Noise songs:
In later interviews, Smith spoke of experimenting with noise tracks. As of 2007, only the titles of these are known and remain unreleased in any form.

★ "The Assassin/(Kill) Fuck"

★ "O So Slow"

★ "Melodic Noise"

★ "Yay!"

Other songs from this era

The following songs were played live, mentioned in interviews, or may have been worked on during this era:

★ "Blue Mood"

★ "Brand New Game" – originally recorded for ''XO'' and ''Figure 8''; may not have been worked on, but was intended to be

★ "Cecilia/Amanda" – originally recorded for ''XO''

★ "Going Nowhere" – originally recorded for ''Either/Or'' in 1996, later released on ''New Moon''

★ "My New Freedom (Doing Okay, Pretty Good)" – may have been reworked into "See You in Heaven"

★ "Sorry My Mistake" – originally recorded for ''Figure 8''

★ "Unlucky Charm"

★ "You Make it Seem Like Nothing" – played live during the ''Either/Or'' era, brought back for live sets in 2003

Personnel

★ Sam Coomes (of Quasi, formerly in Heatmiser) - bass guitar and backup vocals on "Pretty (Ugly Before)"

★ Steven Drozd (of The Flaming Lips) - drums on "Coast to Coast"

★ Aaron Embry - keyboards on "Pretty (Ugly Before)"

★ Scott McPherson - drums on "Pretty (Ugly Before)"

★ Fritz Michaud - drums on "King's Crossing"

★ Aaron Sperske - drums on "Coast to Coast"

References

1. Elliott Smith Lives Again! From a Basement on the Hill V.2
2. Thursday, December 09, 2004 McConnell, David
3. 'From a Basement': Elliott Smith's Posthumous Gift Elizabeth Blair