{"id":1624,"date":"2012-04-14T15:13:57","date_gmt":"2012-04-14T22:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/billchapin.net\/allthecitylights\/?p=1624"},"modified":"2015-01-12T09:31:50","modified_gmt":"2015-01-12T17:31:50","slug":"song-duel-somebody-that-i-used-to-know-by-gotye-vs-somebody-that-i-used-to-know-by-elliott-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/billchapin.net\/allthecitylights\/2012\/04\/song-duel-somebody-that-i-used-to-know-by-gotye-vs-somebody-that-i-used-to-know-by-elliott-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"SONG DUEL!: “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye vs. “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Elliott Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two songs enter. One song leaves. Well, OK, both leave. It\u2019s not like we erase all traces of the losing song from the Internet, but we determine once and for all which tune has the right to their strikingly similar titles. This is\u00a0<\/em>SONG DUEL<\/a><\/em>!<\/em><\/p>\n

Man, this Gotye<\/a> song is everywhere. <\/em>I was at the KFC on Lake Park Avenue the other day; they had the radio tuned to a local “urban”-I-believe-is-the-polite-term-nowadays station, and it was playing some sort of remixed version with a hip-hop beat. It is seriously approaching “Rolling in the Deep<\/a>” territory in terms of overexposure. But can its across-the-board acceptance compete with the deep respect that the late Elliott Smith<\/a>‘s songwriting inspires? Let’s find out, shall we?<\/p>\n

\"Elliott<\/a>In this corner:<\/strong> “Somebody That I Used to Know,” a two-minute kiss-off ballad from Smith’s 2000 album Figure 8,<\/em> the last full-length recording released before his death. Never a particularly cheerful fellow, Smith supposedly stabbed himself twice in the heart on Oct. 21, 2003, in his Los Angeles home, although the conspiracy-friendly soil of the Internet has continued to sprout questions about whether he may have been murdered<\/a>.<\/p>\n