partial-solution! very dumb approach but kinda sorta working:
When drawing a background (which is essentially clearing the screen and drawing a color), i just store the color to a global table holding that background color. I also set a flag to draw the background color. Inside the love.draw() i check for that flag, then clear the screen with whatever the last saved color was. Then i run the rest of the draw() function.
why this isn't a perfect solution: it assumes drawing a background color will always be first before drawing everything else, which isn't a perfect assumption. need to think some more.
