how to make me cry

Play me these live Elliott Smith tracks - the first one is a cover of "These Days," which I'd never heard him sing, along with one of my absolute favorites of his, "Between the Bars" and "2:45 am" and "St. Ides Heaven"

Well, maybe not cry exactly, but close. I think it will always be more than a little bittersweet to listen to him, to these songs that I've heard so, so many times. There were a few months where I played Either/Or every single day, multiple times. It's also a bit of nostalgia, for my earliest days here in New York. Much as my life is a million times better now, there was something really fun about having the whole city be so new and fresh. The people I was closest to then are flung all across the country, though we are connected, by these weird little online communities, I guess. New York still has that dazzle for me sometimes, but it's rarer. I can forget about it more easily, can not even see things because I think I've seen them before, I think I know what will be there. And then sometimes I look more closely, like listening to a song for the thousandth time and hearing a breath or a line or a melody and falling in love with it all over again.

I guess Elliott's as good as anyone to listen to as I read Amazon reviews and do other research about Smashed author Koren Zailckas.