MP3 | Doug Martsch “Antonio Carlos Jobim” (Live at All Tomorrow’s Parties, 2003)
MP3 | Heatmiser “Bastard John” Cop And Speeder

Elliott Smith was originally scheduled to appear at the Matt Groening-curated All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in 2003, but he never made it. A little more than two weeks before the concert, Elliott was found dead in his Los Angeles home, and the show went on without him. Built To Spill’s Doug Martsch used his band’s set to introduce a solemn cover of Heatmiser’s “Antonio Carlos Jobim,” and in this context, sentiments like, “I like what you wrote / This is a record full of sour notes,” read as elegantly despondent; like most of Elliott’s best songs, it’s a balanced distribution of faith and doubt.

I’ve offset this with “Bastard John,” which appears alongside the original version of “Antonio Carlos Jobim” on Cop And Speeder. Perhaps the closest Elliott ever came to making peace with Heatmiser’s anxious post-punk, it’s more of a cynical blitz — inevitably softened by the boyish naïveté that always made Elliott more winsome than fearsome. “You’re just a comma,” he sings at one point. “You give me pause with your temporary charm.” It’s the type of lyric he would have cringed at later, but in 1994, it was perfect.

(Photo via Austin)