Remembering Elliott Smith (Happy Birthday Elliott)
The title of today's piece is a little inside joke for me. This is a piece about Elliott Smith's music and it's undeniable emotional power... his voice both remote and unique, but immediate and close - like some kind of second consciousness refusing to leave the brain of listeners - like some kind of sticky ghost.
Depending on where in your life you stumbled across Elliott Smith can really change the way you think of his music and how it speaks to you. I guess, like with anything else, it's all just a matter of approach. Songs are so personal, especially Elliott's. His writing (while so successful at doing so) were not so much an attempt to reach out to listeners but to make sense of his own world. We are all looking for that. And so Elliott drew us into his world. It was a place often filled with angst and emotional pain, it was also a place of simplicity, ragged beauty and light. "Remembering Elliott Smith" ... as if we could forget.
Depending on where in your life you stumbled across Elliott Smith can really change the way you think of his music and how it speaks to you. I guess, like with anything else, it's all just a matter of approach. Songs are so personal, especially Elliott's. His writing (while so successful at doing so) were not so much an attempt to reach out to listeners but to make sense of his own world. We are all looking for that. And so Elliott drew us into his world. It was a place often filled with angst and emotional pain, it was also a place of simplicity, ragged beauty and light. "Remembering Elliott Smith" ... as if we could forget.
(editor's note: some tracks removed)
Please purchase this worthy material
For some of our readers, listening to Elliott for the first time - I urge you to listen to (and to hear) each of the tracks. Each represents different times, approaches, subject matter. Each of these is trademark Smith and there's a reason I selected these to serve up to you.
Elliott Smith was born on this date in 1969. It's hard to imagine / it hurts to imagine, what could have been had he not left us 10 years ago. Here's to hoping that we find all the Elliott Smiths out there - especially the ones in our own lives and we give them their moment in the sun.
Elliott Smith was born on this date in 1969. It's hard to imagine / it hurts to imagine, what could have been had he not left us 10 years ago. Here's to hoping that we find all the Elliott Smiths out there - especially the ones in our own lives and we give them their moment in the sun.
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