Smith covered this song, but it did not make the final track listing.

Regarding the albums title, Smith said this in a May 11, 2000 article in Boston Herald.

But theres something I liked about the image of a skater going in this endless twisted circle that doesnt have any real endpoint.

So the object is not to stop or arrive anywhere; its just to make this thing as beautiful as they can.

Since Elliotts death in 2003 it has become a memorial to him.

And here, on the verge of a new decade, were in a position to do the same again.

Since the beginning of October, Monday through Friday, we have been featuring posts detailing our favorite albums of the decade.

Now with less than two weeks left in the last year of the first decade of the new millennium we are ramping uphighlighting our absolute favorites.

At a base level, Smiths solo work can roughly be divided into two stacks: the earlier, lo-fi, four-track recordings ( Roman Candle, Elliott Smith, EitherOr ) and the more produced latter LPs released by Dreamworks ( XO, Figure 8 ).

While the first few LPs were cut with whatever recording devices were on hand, at whatever spaces (friends houses, apartments, etc) were available, once Smith signed to a major, and was given the luxury of a proper studio, everything changed.

All at the once the colors of Smiths imagination were able to pour out into his music, no longer restricted by the black and white confines of lo-fi home-recording.

Using the studio itself as an instrument Smith paid homage to his favorite bits and pieces of twentieth century popular music, from tin pan alley and folk to the pop flourishes of the Kinks, Zombies and Beatles.

Lush and atmospheric Figure 8 may not be my absolute favorite of Elliott Smiths albums, but it is without a doubt my favorite in terms of overall production.

While much is made about Elliott Smith the songwriterthe lyricist, much less so is his keen sense of arrangement and production.

Because of XO and Figure 8, I think that will change with time.

Its the swell that begins at 1:30 on album-opener Son of Sam climaxing at 1:40 when the guitars crunch and splinter into a million saccharine-sweet pieces.

Its the simplest little melody, but it feels so fucking good and terrible, optimistic and hopeless, a moment of resignation that hurts like hell but promises hey, itll be okay, and you dont even need the vocals to know it.

Elliott Smith could capture dichotomies like that better than anyone, I think.

Figure 8 is my favorite Elliott Smith album for the very reason you mentioned: he had access to everything he needed to build and shape the songs into whatever he wanted them to be, and proved that the possibilities were nearly endless.

Figure 8 Elliott Smith Torrent