'Elliott'

This one is kind of a follow up to the poem I wrote about Elliott Smith. Since it's his birthday I figured I probably should write something about it and I wrote this piece a while back. It just really kicked me in the heart when I stumbled upon his music and then found out almost immediately that there wasn't gonna be any more of it. I refer to him on first name basis because he feels like one of us in a very warm way and is relatable. His songs really are an addiction, it can go out of hand. But I'll always love his music and his words will always be there through my worst times. Here's to Elliott Smith, a friend from beyond the grave.  
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I remember the first time I heard Elliott’s voice. It was in a movie. The Royal Tenenbaums. The song: Needle in the Hay. Up until then I hadn't heard a song which showed pure beauty in melancholy and misery like it did. The song was originally about addiction but it made me believe it was for every other sorrow I held. It haunted me to the point where I couldn't listen to it again for weeks. It held a mirror. It showed me the part of me that adored misery. It took me back to a dark past.

It’s hard enough to accept that you’re different from others in not the most acceptable way. It’s harder to accept that you absolutely don’t know your way around it. It’s amazing how society changes you to the point that you can’t come back. It’s a strange sort of irony that it changes you enough to alienate yourself from it.

Elliott wrote for us ‘strange kids’. He was one himself. For he came from shyness and social awkwardness like we did. He knew how we hide our sorrows behind smiles. He knew our endless secret heartbreaks. He understood what we went through. Actually, we understood what he went through. We could relate to the ache in his words.

They called him 'Mr. Misery'. They called him the ‘most depressing singer ever’. They never knew sorrow like he did. They never understood him. They never understood us, who did understand him.

They blamed it on his heroin. They never took the blame. They called him names. They called him different. We called him one of us.

His songs promised us he’d keep us away from all of them. He told us that it was okay to be ourselves. That it was okay to feel different. That it was okay to be addicted. That it was sweetest kind of sorrow to have one’s heart broken. He made us love our misery. But he wasn't ‘Mr. Misery’; he was plain old Elliot Smith. The one who wrote for the underdogs. Moreover, the one who wrote for himself. The on who wrote the truth.

And then he went away. Just like that. He gave us warmest hugs that turned colder than the winter’s bosom. They said he took his own life. They said he fell too much in love with the misery and confusion he taught us to be in awe of.

I discovered his music rather late. Years after his demise. Yet it might sound rather unfair that I sound as if I knew him so well. It’s because his songs talk to his listeners. His voice comes from beyond death, whispering forever and ever more.
But in all fairness, nobody knew him. Elliot hid behind is words. He hated being termed ‘shy’, ‘dull’ or ‘different’. Much like we all did. Because it never let us go beyond that.

Elliot killed himself many times before. Every time he broke up. Every time he fought with those horrible ones who thought they knew it all. Every time they called him weak. Every time they called him different. Every time he drank or injected himself with the right substance that could ‘make it all okay’ and ‘drive them away’. But not that day.

You see, that day Elliott didn't kill himself. He was murdered

One might think of the theory that suggests that his love, Jennifer Chiba stabbed him to death. That she couldn't take all the mood swings and the drug use, and she placed a cold knife deep into where most of Elliott’s thoughts came from and reached. I want to believe that she did, for our heroes never die like that. They don’t die a weak death like suicide.

But this was Elliott Smith. He made sorrow his best friend, depression his estranged lover, death his mistress. But was he capable of taking his own life? Was he capable of such violence? Was he the ‘Roman candle’ he said he was? We’ll never know

But he was murdered. He was murdered by everyone else. He was murdered by the people that surrounded him. The ones that never found the depth in him. The ones who were quick to judge him for appearance. The dreaded society that Elliott despised.
Yet he did nothing about it. He just floated through it like a balloon, avoiding it all. But balloons ultimately pop. And the one who was Elliott did too. The streets are too ‘sharp’. As sharp as a needle in the hay. Except it seems more like hay in the needle. Carefree balloons don’t belong there.

I don’t know if Elliott could've been better. I can’t really imagine how it would be if he was alive today. He was too beautiful for this world. I do admit his songs glorify the grim sorrows we all are bound to feel. But they all have a certain hope to it. A certain warm positivity within them. It’s almost as if we wanted us to feel alive with each lyric. Elliott did have an ironic sense of humour. 

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XO