Last Wednesday, the music world lost one of its true talents, a singer-songwriter known for his soft, fragile voice and his way with a sad song. Elliott Smith took his own life on October 22, 2003. He was 34.

Though he often sang the words of the sad and lonely, his death came as a shock to many in the independent/college music circles where his music was most popular. The Mac Weekly being a college publication, I felt that the music section should comment on the death of this man, someone who shaped the world of indie folk music that a lot of us regard as the soundtrack to our adolescence.

Elliott Smith created music of penetrating sadness and beauty, and with only four solo albums released in his career, he had much more to offer. Smith is remembered by most for his Oscar nominated song “Miss Misery” from the film Good Will Hunting, and also for the absurd fact that he performed at the awards alongside other nominees such as Celine Dion (whom he described as “a lovely person”).

But all of his fans will remember him in different ways, for different things. In an interview with Rolling Stone a few years ago, Smith described his music in his usual, earnest demeanor: “‘Depressing’ isn’t a word I would use to describe my music. But there is some sadness in it— there has to be, so that the happiness in it will matter.”

—Maura McAndrew
 

It was difficult for me to know how to react to the news of Elliott Smith’s death. I felt overdramatic crying and morbid listening to his albums I had not played all the way through in years. The one thing I was sure of was that I had to call my best friend Nadia. She is the biggest fan of Elliott Smith I know, and since she is studying in Mexico for the semester she was not likely to hear the news from anyone else.

Her phone was off so I left a message that felt strange and inappropriate. After I hung up I thought of the memories and people I associate with Elliott Smith. I have decided this is the best memorial I can give to him. Unlike a relative or friend I do not have memories with Elliott Smith, but his music was a background to my high school experience and to times I spent with Nadia during and after high school. It is only right to search for the moments in my life that I associate with Elliott Smith’s music. Artists release their work to take a place in people’s lives and I think it is a testament to Smith’s talent that his songs feature so prominently in the soundtrack of my memory.

I remember Nadia and me lying on the red futon in the living room of her old house. We were both on our backs, legs splayed out, heads supported by the hard mattress. Nadia swore that Elliott Smith’s voice was equal to any round of intense pleasure and we listened to “Between the Bars” and sighed out loud. He sang, “The people you’ve been before that you don’t want around anymore, that push and shove and won’t bend to your will, I’ll keep them still.” The paintings on Nadia’s walls were full of reds and greens, blues, Frida Kahlo. Books from Costa Rica and Mexico sat on the bookshelves. I stared at the walls, at the shelves, at the stereo and her stepfather’s skeleton figurine outfitted in a dress and bonnet for the Day of the Dead sitting next to it. The song washed over me. The guitar vacillated up and down, up and down, Elliott Smith’s voice was muted, the words comforting, the song was and is still like a warm blanket.

His music reminds me of mix tapes that my friends and I made each other throughout high school for birthdays, Hanukah, no occasion at all. Elliott Smith almost always made an appearance on these tapes. I remember the exchange in the hallway, Nadia or one of my other friends reaching into her backpack and pulling out the small plastic box, and the excitement of passing the tape from one person to the other.

This was before CD burners, when it took an hour and a half to make a ninety-minute tape and so each song had to be listened to while the tape was recorded, like a screening before an album can be released. After I got home from school I would listen to the tape alone in my bedroom with its dim lamp and floral patterned bedspread. And then I would bring the tape on a car ride with my friends to the movies or to nowhere in particular. We would sing along to the loud songs and when those songs ended there would be a silence, and suddenly Elliott Smith would be another passenger in the car, sitting in the back with his guitar.

I would lean my head against the window and stare out at the passing cars and streetlights and houses, the colors rushing by; brick red for the high school, green for the grassy triangle in the middle of my town. His voice was so soft and pleading, but sincere. He sang in “Anges,” “I could make you satisfied in everything you do, all your secret wishes could right now be coming true, and be forever with my poison arms around you.” At these moments his songs would sneak up on us. The guitar was so simple and before we knew it we’d be enveloped in his voice.

One time Nadia and I watched Good Will Hunting by fast forwarding only to the parts where you could hear Elliott Smith’s songs. Other times I sat in my room alone and played Either/Or all the way through over and over, feeling the excitement that comes from discovering music that you think is so perfect for the moment you cannot believe that you were lucky enough to find it. And when I listen to his music now I remember all these things, but the fact of his passing is there too and I don’t quite know what to do with that information.

So I wrote out my memories here and I hope that those of you who also remember moments with his music can relate to mine, and those of you who have no memories with his music will listen to it and then create memories of your own.

— Jenna Hymes