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Elliott Smith
last updated 2026-09-11 11:26
Elliott Smith
Plays on LTZ: (historical total not available beyond this vault's episode folders)
Tracks played
Say Yes — played 2026-03-12
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Elliott Smith — Say Yes
Played: 2026-03-12
Closing track from Smith's third album Either/Or, released 25 February 1997 on Kill Rock Stars. One of his few unambiguously optimistic songs; Smith said 'I was really in love with someone' and that he almost never wrote directly about a real person. Featured in the Good Will Hunting soundtrack alongside 'Between the Bars' and 'Angeles.' The album title derives from Søren Kierkegaard's 1843 philosophical work Either/Or, which presents two modes of existence — the aesthetic life (pleasure, impulse, living in the moment) and the ethical life (duty, commitment, moral structure) — as a tension the individual must navigate; Smith drew on this as a thematic lens for the album. Either/Or is Smith's best-selling release despite never charting.
Elliott Smith
Origin: Omaha, Nebraska, USA (raised in Texas, based in Portland, Oregon) · born 1969, died 2003 · deceased
Members: Solo artist (also fronted the band Heatmiser with Neil Gust in the early 1990s)
Genre: Indie folk, lo-fi, singer-songwriter
Discography:
Roman Candle (1994) — Cavity Search
Elliott Smith (1995) — Kill Rock Stars
Either/Or (1997) — Kill Rock Stars — his best-selling release despite never charting
XO (1998) — DreamWorks — major-label debut
Figure 8 (2000) — DreamWorks
From a Basement on the Hill (2004) — Anti- — released posthumously
Facts:
"Miss Misery," featured in Good Will Hunting (1997), earned Smith an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song; he performed it live at the ceremony in a white suit, a famously incongruous moment against the show's usual pageantry.
He died in Los Angeles in October 2003 from two stab wounds to the chest; the circumstances (suicide vs. homicide) were never conclusively resolved by the coroner.