What's Playin' Here

Greg Pak's "Robot Stories" - a collection of four short films, all based around the theme of robots (at least on the surface.)

Of the four, I thought the first and the last films ("My Robot Baby" and "Clay") were so-so. The films in the middle - "Robot Fixer" and "Machine Love" were very satisfying. "Machine Love" especially, very creepy-sad in its execution and storyline.

When a futuristic film with the word "Robot" in its title opens with an acoustic guitar-driven country/folk song, you know you are in for a fun ride :)
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"From A Basement on the Hill", by Elliott Smith - "Basement" is Elliott Smith's last album and was released posthumously in 2004. The year Elliott Smith died (in 2003, apparently of suicide, though the cause of the death is not firmly established yet), a dear friend of mine also died under tragic circumstances. What must go through people's minds when they contemplate suicide?

a dying man in a living room
whose shadow paces the floor
who'll take you out in the open door
this is not my life
it's just a fond farewell to a friend

(from "Fond Farewell")

When Smith sings the line "..who couldn't get things right", it still chokes me up.

A sidenote: When listening to Fond Farewell's chorus, I realized, perhaps consciously for the first time, how harmonies color the tone of the lyrics. This song's chorus already sounds desperate and tragic. But the harmony (don't have a guitar handy to confirm if the singer is singing seconds or fifths there) just pushes the pain in those words and tune to another level. Now that's the art and craft of songwriting.