Background
Upon completion of touring for his previous effort, Midnite Vultures (1999), Beck and his fiancée, stylist Leigh Limon, ended their nine-year relationship. Three weeks before Beck's 30th birthday, he discovered Limon had been cheating on him with a member of Los Angeles-based band Whiskey Biscuit. Beck lapsed into a period of melancholy and introspection, during which he wrote the bleak, acoustic-based tracks later found on Sea Change. He wrote most of the album's 12 songs in one week, but then shelved them. "Songs sit in my head for a while," he told Time in 2002. "I have dozens in there, songs from eight years ago that I've written but never recorded. After a while, I just sort of decide to record them." Beck also strayed from the songs to keep from talking about his personal life, as well as to focus on music and "not really strew my baggage across the public lobby." Eventually, however, he found the songs speak to an experience (a relationship breakup) that is common, and that it would not seem self-indulgent to record them. In 2001, Beck drifted back to the songs and called his frequent producer, Nigel Godrich.
Hansen intended to record the album in late 2001, but due to the September 11 attacks, "it took a while for people to line-up." Before working with Godrich, Beck recorded tracks with Dan "The Automator" Nakamura in January 2002 in preparation for the new record, but eventually no songs from those sessions were present on Sea Change. Many songs from Sea Change were also performed live before the album's recording, such as "Lost Cause" and "Evil Things", the latter of which was a demo that was not recorded due to loss of time. Regarding the performances of more personal tracks in days before Sea Change, Beck explained in 2008 interview that "Those were the kinds of songs I would play in the middle of the show. I'd try to throw a couple of them in. I just remember the audience kind of disregarding them, or moshing, or throwing things. Just because those were the kinds of persons that came out."
Read more about this topic: Sea Change (album)
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