parlando

goodbye elliott smith

Posted on October 22nd, 2003 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Musicians.

I'm not surprised at the reports of poor Elliott Smith's suicide; I'd guess no one who loved his music will be surprised. It's almost unbearably sad, though; sadder than I can afford to be today, with too much working and looming deadlines. I don't think I'll be able to listen to his music for several days.

Others will do a better job of describing him than I can. But before I go to work today, I want to say a little bit about what he meant to me. He was stark and personal, in a way that made you think you were having his thoughts. I suffered years of debilitating depression, and listening to Smith gave me an aching empathy. Even now, when I literally don't remember how it felt to be depressed, listening to Smith reminds me vividly of what I thought. Except he said everything beautifully, and wrapped it in truly gorgeous melody. That was the astonishing, vertiginous contradiction: the bleak words married to stirringly beautiful music, lush slow tunes and happy brisk ones, almost all of it memorable and inviting endless pleased repetition. His music was the antithesis of his words: it was beauty-embracing, life-affirming.

But oh, the words. We were just listening to XO a couple days ago, and noting how the bleakness of "I Didn't Understand" is so dreadfully convincing because it's personal; it's not a bitch or a whine or an accusation at the world, it's about being personally wrong and fucked up, knowing it, and feeling unable to do anything about it. It's the most direct and moving expression of personal bleakness I've ever heard in a song, wrapped in a beautiful, haunting (overused goddamned word) a capella arrangement.

thought you'd be looking for the next in line to love
then ignore put out and put away
and so you'd soon be leaving me alone
like i'm supposed to be tonight,
tomorrow and everyday
there's nothing here that you'll miss
i can guarantee you this is a cloud of smoke
trying to occupy space what a fucking joke,
what a fucking joke
i waited for a bus to separate the both of us
and take me off far away from you
'cos my feelings never change a bit
i always feel like shit
i don't know why i guess that i "just do"
you once talked to me about love
and you painted pictures of a never-neverland
and i could've gone to that place
but i didn't understand
i didn't understand, i didn't understand

Smith touched the very beginning of my relationship with Velma. Before we actually got together, two friends invited us to their place, the first time we had hung out together in many years. I put on Smith's XO. The penultimate song, "Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands," is an angry, bitter lashing out:

everybody cares, everybody understands
yes everybody cares about you
yeah and whether or not you want them to
it's a chemical embrace that kicks you in the head
to a pure synthetic sympathy
that infuriates you totally
and a quiet lie
that makes you wanna scream and shout

By the end it's spitting:

you say you mean well,
you don't know what you mean
you fucking ought to stay the hell away
from things you know nothing about

And then the song is transformed by a miracle: a gradually building coda, rising strings and a repeating drum sting that ascend to a staggering beauty, a sublime (yes, sublime, damnit) gorgeousness that transcends emotion and is pure musical ecstasy; I can't listen to it without closing my eyes, scrunching my face, and giving myself over to it. I can't deny my response to beauty like that; I can either throw myself into it or turn it off.

So I was standing, swaying and bouncing and smiling, eyes closed, to this passage of music I know and love so completely, and while I was doing so, Velma was watching me and falling in love with me.

I walked her home that night, though we didn't kiss yet. We think about that day, and that minute of beauty, and connection, every time we listen to the song. We thought about it and looked at each other with love listening to it two days ago. And we still will, still can, I know; but it will be touched with irretrievable, terrible loss.

Goodbye, Elliott Smith. Thank you.

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