Elliott Smith

I don’t really know how to write about this, but I’m just gonna start and see what comes out.

It’s some thoughts about Elliott Smith, who, I’m sure many of you know by now, stabbed himself in the heart a couple weeks ago, and died.

I’ve always loved Elliott Smith’s music – since I first heard him on the “Good Will Hunting” soundtrack.

Something in the sound called to me, in that rare way some musicians have. It’s completely subjective, such a response. Certain chord changes, certain lyrics … It’s hard to put my finger on what exactly it might be that speaks to me in a certain person’s music.

It’s not just the melancholic stuff that appeals to me.

It seems to be a matter of affinity. The chords, chosen by whatever musician, and my own personality.

For whatever reason: certain sounds call me up out of myself.

Metallica can do that.
Foo Fighters can do that.
Lenny Kravitz can do that (sometimes)
Nirvana can do that
Certain Indigo Girls songs can do that (not all of them)
Certain James Taylor songs can do that.

Obviously – putting Metallica and James Taylor on the same list is an odd thing – but that is the beauty of music. It’s completely personal.

But back to Elliott.

I have the “Good Will Hunting” soundtrack because of him, and I also have the “Royal Tenenbaums” soundtrack because of the one song of his on it. (The entire soundtrack is fabulous though … just so you know!)

I read an interview with him when “Good Will Hunting” just came out, and he was suddenly catapulted onto a larger arena. Here was this guy – this very independent folk-rock musician – used to playing small clubs, tiny venues – on a world-wide stage. I liked him very much in the interview, although, in looking back on it, there were certain clues that all might not be right with him. (But then again: who can say “all is right with me at all times”?)

He was living in Queens, at the time, I believe, and would go to a bar every night, and sit there, by himself, all night, and write his songs there.

He offered up this picture of himself unapologetically.

It was actually a bit refreshing – although obviously the story reveals the dark undertones, the loneliness which clearly haunted him.

I don’t know why I’m rambling on like this. I guess that I am just so very sad that he is gone – that he took his life in such a horrendous way – I completely feel for him. I cannot imagine what agony such as that must have been like, but it must have been tremendous. Tremendous.

The heart … it is an organ, yes. But it is such a symbol too.

Our life. Our feelings. Who we actually ARE seems to be in our hearts. So … to go straight to the source of the pain … To get rid of the actual organ which holds so much –

God.

I came home last night, made a little dinner, poured some wine – and popped in Elliott Smith. For no real reason. One of his songs was on the Siobhan mix we all listened to on our drive north to Cashel – and that turned my thoughts to him again: Dammit, he is great – I need to listen to him again.

He said that he loved “upbeat” music. He loved the Beatles.

To me, the Beatles influence is obvious in his music.

I love that he loves the Beatles. There is an illusionary innocence in Smith’s chord progressions – in the same way of the Beatles. Especially in “Rubber Soul”, my favorite Beatles album. Every song on that album has almost an upbeat tune, a zippy little mood, but if you listen to the lyrics – it’s all dark, and mournful, filled with loss. It’s chilling, actually. A bit frightening.

Smith’s songs are like that for me.

There is a profound melancholy suffusing it all. It is hard to put your finger on where that melancholy is. Is it in the tune? Not really … The lyrics are admittedly bleak – But he sings them in an extroverted way … not self-absorbed … However, if you add them up, the songs are a treatise on depression

These lines in particular:

“I got a long way to go
I’m getting further away…” sung over and over and over.

If that doesn’t describe the sensation of depression, then nothing does.

But still: the melancholy is not easily identified. It just is THERE. In everything he does. His lyrics are creepily sad and nostalgic – (that kind of “All good stuff is in the past” nostalgia. Not a happy or pleasant nostalgia.)

The chords sometimes are light, and happy-sounding – but still. There is something a little off.

You know that this man battles darkness. You just KNOW it.

I was listening to the “Figure 8” album, which is a terrific album. I want to make it clear that this album is not a downer. There are some tunes which make you tap your feet, each song has a great beat …

It’s a very deep album. There is a lot going on.

I felt myself getting more and more … upset. As I listened. Thinking about him. Trying to fathom how he died. What he did to himself.

He didn’t shoot himself. Or OD.

He stabbed himself in the heart.

There was that recent study (thanks, Danny) – that a broken heart actually DOES HURT.

Well, Jesus, you didn’t need to run a study to figure that out! You could have just called me up and asked me! Ask anybody!

That’s why people say, “My heart is breaking.” That’s why it’s called “heartache”.

What – some bozo thought that the “ache” was just a figure of someone’s imagination?

I remember many times in my own life – lying in bed at night after getting my heart broken or whatever – and pressing my hand down on my aching heart. I am not talking metaphorically. My heart LITERALLY hurt.

I was trying to picture what was going on with Elliott Smith.

Obviously, he must have struggled with mental illness, along with addiction. I don’t know much about him, though. But he must have been in complete psychic agony.

Agony so deep that he just wanted to make the pain STOP.

I remember going to hear Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill read a couple years ago. She’s an Irish poetess. Who writes completely in Irish.

She has had her own struggles with depression and mental illness.

She said a couple of amazing things about it, stuff which has stayed with me.

One was that she was put on Prozac, and she didn’t like what it did to her poetry. Normally, her poem lines had lengths of jagged edges – but once she went on Prozac “all my poems were like little neat boxes on the page.” She said, “Prozac puts wallpaper over the abyss.”

The other thing she said was, “Y’know, there is this feeling or this thought that suffering is ennobling.” There was a long pause, and then she said, in this way I have never forgotten, “Not always.”

All I can say is: That woman knows of what she speaks.

There is such a thing as too much suffering.

And Elliott Smith’s face – he is (or was) a young man. But that is a face of a man who has had enough. He has had enough psychic agony.

I know a lot of this is hindsight. Projecting backwards.

In a way, I am glad his pain is over now. Pain like that is beyond my understanding. I may have felt like cutting my own heart on occasion, just to stop the ache, but to actually do such a thing?

Elliott Smith. Rest in Peace.

I will miss your music very much. But I am not sorry that your pain is now over.