Earlier today I was waiting to pick up one of my daughters from soccer practice, while her sister sat next to me in the car.
Elliott Smith’s ‘The Biggest Lie’ came up on my stereo (I have my music library playing on random, making every trip I take basically Random Weekends on steroids).
That’s always been one of my favorite Smith tunes, but it hit me harder than usual this time.
I thought I’d show the song some love on the blog but when I checked past posts to see if I’d already featured it, it turned out I had, way back at Song of the Day #58.
Later, I came home and hit the computer to work on the upcoming Random Weekend posts. The first to pop up was the Rolling Stones track I posted yesterday. As I clicked the ‘next’ button, I thought back to ‘The Biggest Lie’ and thought to myself that I’d love to hear a little Elliott Smith.
And son of a bitch if this song didn’t pop up. What are the odds?
Funny you should ask. The odds are 1 in 122 that an Elliott Smith Song would come up on any given spin of the Random iTunes dial. OK, it ain’t Powerball, but I thought it was pretty cool.
Rode down south to your little world like a dream
You can do it if you want to
You can do it if you want to
You can do it if you want to be like me
I wouldn’t need a hero if I wasn’t such a zero
If I wasn’t such a zero
Good to go
All I ever see around here is things of hers
That you left lying around
It’s all I ever see around here
She kicked New York like a curse
And you traced her footsteps in reverse up to Queens
You can do it if you want to
You can do it if you want to
You can do it if you want to be like me
I wouldn’t need a hero if I wasn’t such a zero
If I wasn’t such a zero
Good to go
All I ever see around here is things of hers
That you left lying around
It’s all I ever see around here
Some empty envelopes from some other town
It’s all I ever see around here
I’m waiting for something that’s not coming
Meet Me In Montauk 
Well, clearly you need to go straight to the casino.😄
It’s funny how much you love the melancholy. If you take Jack Johnson and add melancholy, you get pretty close to Smith in terms of a lack of diversity in sound. That’s not a knock on Smith, by the way, as I like his sound a lot. However, nearly every song I have heard from him sounds an awful lot like today’s song.
I would have thought that the odds would have been even higher, anyway it’s always amazing when things like that happen.
Your daughters must be getting quite the exposure to your vast musical collection 🙂