Nobody handled sad songs any better than Elliott Smith. The late great singer-songwriter didn’t have to force the emotion. Both the tone of his voice and a natural tendency toward the melancholy made the weepers sound somewhat effortless coming from him.
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“Better Be Quiet Now”, released in 2000, ranks very high on any list of Elliott Smith sad songs. Which means, by definition, it also has to stand pretty tall on any general sad song lists encompassing all artists.
“Quiet” Pain
By the time Elliott Smith released his 2000 album Figure 8, he had established himself as one of the most well-known singer-songwriters of his era. It wasn’t recognition that Smith sought as a priority. His songs were just so amazing and his performances so mesmerizing that the world gravitated to him.
While he maintained status as a kind of indie hero, Smith was already recording his second album for a major label. Smith had also broken out thanks to the exposure that he received from his songs appearing in Good Will Hunting, which led to a performance at the Academy Awards.
With a bigger budget at his disposal, Smith took his time recording Figure 8 over a period of a couple of years. In addition, he bounced around to several studios, including Abbey Road in London. That was fitting, because many songs on the record found Smith indulging in Beatlesque production flourishes.
“Better Be Quiet Now” takes a starker approach in a musical sense. Smith’s tender, delicately plucked guitar work carries the sound. But mostly, the music stays out of the way of his aching melody and the heartrending lyrics.
Examining the Lyrics to “Better Be Quiet Now”
The narrator of “Better Be Quiet Now” would find a problem with the old adage that it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. His near-miss at bliss just gave him a taste of what it might be like. Now that it’s denied him, the pain is immeasurable.
He meekly makes known his laments, as if he’s afraid to overstep his bounds with his ex. “Wish you gave me your number,” Smith begins. “Wish I could call you today/Just to hear your voice.” It feels like a clean break from her might be a better idea for him in the long term. But he can’t make that leap.
“If I didn’t know the difference,” he admits. “Living alone would probably be okay/It wouldn’t be lonely.” In the middle eight, he longs to go back to before she was in his life. “It was easy when I didn’t know you yet,” he says, compared to his current predicament. “Things I’d have to forget.”
He continues measuring the distance between the way he’d like things to be and the way they are. “Wish I knew what you were doing,” he mewls. “And why you want to do it this way.” Even as he keeps claiming that silence is his best option, he continues to vent.
The refrain is one of Smith’s most subtly devastating. “I got a long way to go, I’m getting further away,” he sings. Despite its title, “Better Be Quiet Now”, thanks to the unerring touch of Elliott Smith, conveys the depth of the narrator’s misery loud and clear.
Photo by Theo Wargo/WireImage
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