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having a bit of an Elliott Smith moment lately and i have been especially obsessed with the first couple lines of Speed Trials:

he imagery here is so vivid but it seems like every single detail is perfectly chosen to resist straightforward interpretation. so first of all, i think it’s implicit the horse here is some kind of statue or painting that is enormous, i’m pretty sure we are not talking an actual horse. but a horse statue in a cathedral is a very odd sight, horses are not an animal that (afaik) have much significance in christianity. if anything, horses are seen as too high and mighty. Jesus famously rode a donkey instead of a horse as a display of humility. horses were more associated with conquering armies like the Romans, and that possibly ties into the one significant use of horses in the bible, the horsemen of the apocalypse. i think that the use of the word “master” to refer to the originator of the “sweet high notes” relates to horses as a symbol of power.

“glass stained black” seems to be an expression of elliott smith’s love of contradiction. stained glass is designed to let light through. windows stained black are more associated with unmarked vans and government buildings and the like. covert operations. pretty much opposite to the welcoming atmosphere churches seek to create.

also, who is meeting who here? this is the one place this “he” character appears, with the rest of the verses sticking to second person and the choruses using first person. is “he” the one singing the high notes? is it a priest? the metaphor of blacked out windows could maybe allude to a confession booth…

the rest of the lyrics to the song are comparatively much much more straightforward metaphors for addiction (in the literal and more symbolic sense), a child playing with an electrical socket, a pinball that keeps falling back into the hole. i think the notes echoing back to destroy their master connects the cathedral scene to those metaphors. seems many people interpret the horse as a reference to a slang term for heroin and like, i kinda get it, but i feel like this is such an oblique way to refer to drugs, i think the vagueness intentionally leaves it open to multiple interpretations. that seems to be the way elliott smith liked his lyrics to be understood. anyway idk what it adds up to i’ve just been rotating this verse in my head for days…

also for those who give a shit about music theory i give you this wonderful academic music theory paper about the ambiguous key center of this song and many other elliott smith songs and how that ties into his love of contradiction: link

daxe’s interpretation: