Thirteen

On this episode of my blog, I'm featuring the song Thirteen by Big Star and Covered by Elliott Smith.

The song was originally featured on the album #1 Record. It's ranked number 406 on Rolling Stone’s 500 greatest songs of all time, and they described it as "one of rock's most beautiful celebrations of adolescence," which is a very accurate description. I keep trying to describe it in another way, but all my descriptions fall short. The song is fantastic, and it captures the best parts of what it’s like to be a teenager. It turns out that quite a few people have covered this song. It’s actually 13 people including Elliott Smith. How perfect is that? I'm putting it out there right now. Nobody else can cover this song ever! I don't care how good it is, or how much you like it. 13 people have covered it. If another person covers it they'll ruin everything.

Big Star was critically acclaimed but never had much success commercially. Alex Chilton, the bands front man is probably best known for the song the Letter by the Box Tops. Alex Chilton passed away on March 17^th 2010. I remember the day really well. I was totally bummed out after hearing the news; before he died I was still hopeful that one day I might get to see him do a show. I was waiting for a university class, (I'm pretty sure it was anthropology) to start and I suddenly heard Thirteen being played down the hall. I followed the sound of the music and it led to a professor’s office. I kind of knocked on the door and stuck my head in, and mentioned to the professor that I also knew about Chilton's death. It was a little bit anti-climatic because the Professor had never listened to him before that moment and had just seen and followed a link some one had posted on facebook. I’m not going to lie, I felt a little bit awkward after, but I still think it’s a good story.

Moving on. Elliott Smith recorded Thirteen during a radio session in 1996, and it was released on is posthumous compilation album New Moon. The compilation was pretty successful and reached number 24 on the US charts. This version is a similar to Big Star's but has way less production. Which makes sense since it was recorded during a radio session. Elliot Smith has this way of making everything he touches sad as heck. He might be the saddest guy to ever live. You might be thinking, "what about Morrissey? He wrote a bunch of sad songs." That’s true but he didn't stab himself twice in the chest. Well apparently the autopsy results on whether the wounds were self inflicted was inconclusive, but that doesn’t matter Smith was really sad and it comes through in the song.

Big Star:

Elliott Smith:

I do really like both versions of this song. Smith's version is excellent. His voice comes across sad and haunted. For example the last verse reads, "if it's no, well I can go. I won't make you." I just always feel when listening to Smith's version that the answer is expected to be a definitive no, while for some reason that line seems more hopeful in the Big Star version. And overall, I just find the Big Star version to be much more polished. Chilton's vocal combined with two guitars, and the harmonies, paint such a perfect picture of adolescence. There's also that nice little guitar solo. And all of those things are why Big Star wins.