• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Crushing Krisis

The Newest Oldest Blog In New Zealand

  • DC Guides
    • DC Events
    • DC New 52
    • DC Rebirth
    • Batman Guide
    • The Sandman Universe
  • Marvel Guides
    • Marvel Events
    • Spider-Man Guide (1963-2018)
    • X-Men Reading Order
  • Indie & Licensed Comics
    • Spawn
    • Star Wars Guide
      • Expanded Universe Comics (2015 – present)
      • Legends Comics (1977 – 2014)
    • Valiant Guides
  • Drag
    • Canada’s Drag Race
    • Drag Race Down Under
    • Drag Race France
    • Drag Race Philippines
    • Dragula
    • RuPaul’s Drag Race
    • RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars
  • Archive
  • Contact!

Depression

35-for-35: 1998 – “Baby Britain” by Elliott Smith

November 16, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]A long, long time ago, I wrote about how Built To Spill’s Keep It Like a Secret was the first crack in the dam I had constructed against enjoying music performed by men.

My 90s record collection was like a personal Affirmative Action policy on music. At the time, I didn’t even have the excuse of being a musical artist who was wielding judgement and harboring jealousy when it came to my male peers. Aside from Tom Petty’s Greatest Hits and the requisite Nevermind and Unplugged, I had nary a dude in my collection. The sound of the male voice didn’t please me, even if their songs weren’t of the dull “get the girl” variety.

If picking up the Built to Spill record in February of 1999 was a crack in my dam, Elliott Smith’s XO was the flood that followed.Rarely in my life have I been so sucker-punched by a record as I was by XO, released the prior August. I first heard them both from the same source – my friend Anastasia, whose musical taste subsumed my own for a few months that year, transforming it completely for the rest of my life.

While the quaver of Smith’s voice and his delicate songs of defeat would worm their way into my brain over time, but it was when I hit track four that I knew I was in love with this album.

There is something about a song that starts abruptly with a vocal and clanging piano chords that makes me love it. Perhaps it’s a genetic disposition towards anything reminiscent of “Penny Lane.”

While “Baby Britain” doesn’t necessarily call back to that song, there’s an unmistakably 70s McCartney vibe to the bounciest of Smith’s songs from XO (which namechecks Revolver in its third verse). It helps that it straight up nicks the tiny, high guitar stabs from “Getting Better.”

The song is so relentlessly cheerful and major key that it takes several listens before you realize how tragic it is. (This is one of Smith’s singular talents.)  It’s a song for a friend in a downward spiral – one Smith recognizes but doesn’t know how to steer out of. All that cheer is the good humor of someone halfway through the evening’s bottle of vodka; it won’t last until the bottom, and she’ll need another the next day to recover.

baby-britain-elliott-smithI’ve always adored the puzzle of the chorus – two incomplete thoughts that change the lens of the rest of the song depending on how you read them.

For someone half as smart
You’d be a work of art
You put yourself apart
And I can’t help until you start

Is the “someone half as smart” the Baby Britain Smith is singing to? If you read it that way, the entire song is a kiss off or a put down. I don’t. Nothing else in the song casts her as dim.

I’ve always read that first line as Smith’s dig at himself. If he didn’t know all of her destructive behavior so well he’d swear she was a work of art – an alchoholic manic pixie dream girl sailing across a sea of vodka. Sadly, he knows better than that. What’s charming to a man half as smart is a honeycomb of character flaws to Elliott.

It’s easy to hear the next line as “You pull yourself apart,” which entirely makes sense within the world of the song, but the lyric is “you put yourself apart” (calling back to “separated from the rest” in the first verse). Can Baby Britain’s problems be character flaws if some of them are so intentional? We’ve all met that person who creates their own tidal waves of conflict. It’s easy not to pity them when they’re the ones putting themselves apart from everyone else and the helping hands offered by that crowd, but that doesn’t mean you don’t feel sorry for the choices they make.

The final line is one of those perfect Elliott Smith lines. It’s a sentence of infinite density. If we were reading this grammatically, the “until you start” would seem to apply to the prior phrase. It doesn’t. It’s self contained. Smith applies so much compression to “And I can’t help you until you start to help yourself” that he’s stripped out every extraneous word. The chorus could just be this single elegant line repeated four times, but that would draw too much attention to it. Better a a the final line, a summation but also tossed away as the swell of the song crests into another verse.

Also, I humbly submit that this is one of the best lyrics ever written.

We knocked another couple back
The dead soldiers lined up on the table
Still prepared for an attack
They didn’t know they’d been disabled

Yet, with retrospect, the truly cutting lyric is the final line of the final verse. It’s another of Smith’s trademark compressed phrases, with a double negative obscuring the meaning until you squint at it closely.

Nothing’s gonna drag me down
To a death that’s not worth cheating

Who is Smith to pull Baby Britain out of her spiral of misery when it would be an admission that he could pull out of his own? That death is a fate that’s not worth cheating – either because it’s inevitable or because on some level he believes he might deserves it. Nothing can drag him down to that level or away from it because he’s already a permanent inhabitant.

I’ll always remember stepping into my mother’s car a few days after October 21, 2003 and saying, “I’ve got some awful news to tell you.” Elliott Smith’s music was something so intelligent and perfect, and to this day I mourn that there’s a finite amount of it in this work because he finally reached the end he couldn’t cheat his way out of.

Filed Under: Song of the Day Tagged With: 35-for-35, Depression, Elliott Smith

Primary Sidebar


Support Crushing Krisis on Patreon
Support CK
on Patreon


Follow me on Twitter Contact me Watch me on Youtube Subscribe to the CK RSS Feed

About CK

About Crushing Krisis
About My Music
About Your Author
Blog Archive
Comics Blogs Only
Contact Krisis
Terms & Conditions

Crushing Comics

Marvel Comics

Marvel Events Guide

Spider-Man Guide

DC Comics

  • Drag Race Belgique Season 1 Episode 00 - Promo SquareDrag Race Belgique Season 1 – Pre-Season “Meet The Queens” Power Ranking
    It's time to meet the queens of a whole new Drag Race franchise - Drag Race Belgique, hosted by alien actress Rita Baga! […]
  • RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 6 – “Old Friends Gold” Girl Groups Challenge, Review & Power Ranking
    The drag queens of RuPauls' Drag Race Season 15 take on a golden oldies Girl Group challenge with unlikely musical genres in Old Friends Gold. […]
  • Marvel United Multiverse Kickstarter - Maximum Carnage Expansion BoxMarvel United: Multiverse adds Maximum Carnage to the campaign! (Plus, the High Evolutionary!)
    Marvel United Multiverse Maximum Carnage unleashed an unexpected group of villains onto the campaign in the from of a (very) New Sinister Six! Plus, High Evolutionary, and my predictions for the final expansion box(es). […]
  • New Mutants (2019) #7Updated: Guide to New Mutants, Generation X, Academy X, & other Young X-Men
    My Guide to New Mutants now covers every new class of X-Men, from the "3rd Class" of New Mutants through Generation X, Academy X, Generation Hope, & The Age of Krakoa - plus the return of the 1st Class of All-New X-Men! […]
  • Cable Math & Maps: Collected Issue Counting and Future Omnibus Mapping
    it's time for mathing and mapping Cable! How much of Cable has been collected from his 1990 debut onward, including his pre-history? And, how could it all fit into Omnibus? […]
  • Marvel United Multiverse Kickstarter - Annihilation BoxMarvel United: Multiverse adds Annihilation (plus, 20 potential Marvel Event expansions and their predicted contents)
    I perfectly predicted this new Marvel United Multiverse expansion box and all its contents, so what do my psychic powers say about the remainder of the campaign? […]
  • Guide to Spider-Man comics from 2018 to present day – now available to the public!
    Peter Parker has had a massive 5 years in comics, from Nick Spencer's Amazing Spider-Man run to Zeb Wells spinning Dark Web and the Summer of Symbiotes. Find every issue from 2018 to present day in this new guide! […]
  • X-Men Vote 2023 - Polls Are Open NowElect your favorite mutant with Marvel’s annual X-Men Vote! #xmenvote
    It's time for the third annual X-Men Vote to determine one new permanent member of the flagship X-Men team. Let's meet the six candidates and discuss the pros and cons of each one. […]
  • Wasp, Janet van Dyne – Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order
    The definitive issue-by-issue comic book collecting […]
  • Marvel United Multiverse Secret Invasion Box KickstarterMarvel United: Multiverse adds a Secret Invasion expansion (plus, 20 events that could be expansion boxes!)
    CMON announced a surprising Marvel United Multiverse Secret Invasion expansion, which raises a question: What other events are still to come? I've got 20 suggestions for them. […]
  • New for Patrons: Guide to Wasp, Janet van Dyne
    This Guide to Wasp follows Janet van Dyne through her 60-year Marvel Comics history, from founding Avenger to finally getting own own series! […]
  • my weighted blanket is hungry
    Me getting 8hrs of fitful sleep doesn't seem to be enough to satiate the hunger of my new 10kg beast of a weighted blanket. […]
  • RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 5 – House of Fashion, Review & Power Ranking
    It's Drag Race Fashion Week in this unconventional materials design challenge with a twist: the queens are split into three groups and have to present cohesive runway collections. […]
  • Breaking News: D&D continues support of Open Gaming License (OGL 1.0), releases their core rules SRD under Creative Commons
    Breaking news! Dungeons & Dragons made the shocking announcement that they're keeping OGL v1.0 and releasing SRD 5.1 under Creative Commons! […]

Layout copyright © 2017 · Foodie Pro Theme by Shay Bocks · Built on the Genesis Framework · Powered by WordPress

Links from Crushing Krisis to retailer websites may be in the form of affiliate links. If you purchase through an affiliate link I will receive a minor credit as your referrer. My credit does not affect your purchase price. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to: Amazon Services LLC Associates Program (in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain), eBay Partner Network, and iTunes Affiliate Program.