Elliott Smith - Figure 8

[Evelina Paxman]

umm i mean the way he sings it.. i watched school house rock as a kid and love the music elliott made.. but listening to him sing this is something else.. hes the only person who could take such a simple kids song and make it sound the way he did.

Eight is also an infinity symbol. As far as symbolism, I think of a 'figure 8' as being like depression, in that it's set on an infinite loop ... "a circle that turns round upon itself." There's no way out, and even when you try to move forward, you always arrive back in the same place, like a cat chasing its own tail. This might be a bit of a reach, and I'm not saying it's the same symbolism Elliott saw; it would appear not, based on the "amusement of a pointless task" interview comment (though elliott was often cryptic about the meanings of his songs in interviews). Anyway, recently I was watching a documentary about depression, and someone described it as being locked inside a circle. This very simple metaphor hit me hard for some reason, and now I relate it to this song.

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