disclaimer--this was written years back when i wrote for a zine called amps 11...it was out of Charlotte...so i could not find the hard copy and felt ever so sad..but then today i found the notebook which i wrote it in...and it reminded me of the random cat who sent me a shirt of elliott smith cos he concurred with me...now its up to you...
OK i was going to go through and fix all the grammatical errors and such, but its my blog and i'll do what i wish...
elliott smith-apparent suicide or unsolved murder?
I first ran across elliott smith's "from a basement on a hill" in the record store i work in. i questioned the staff members who gave me the pertinent info on the man. it got me to thinking, more like submersing myself into anything that pertained to elliott. then after a couple of weeks, yes i said weeks, i found out that he had been dead for a bit. totally taking me off guard. i decided to find out more. I picked up a copy of "elliott smith and the big nothing" by benjamin nugent. i learned much about his dysfunctional adolescence, to become the singer/songwriter we are all aware of. Yet the book would mention quotes of elliott's interviews. Then when friends were asked about it, they recalled no such occasion. So it made me think that he was either a confused man in the fantasy world he had created. Or then again, he would've been a great actor. He was able to change into what people wanted him to be. He was a beautiful lyricist, so much so he was nominated for an Oscar. The song Miss Misery was in the movie "Good Will Hunting" and much of the remaining soundtrack is also him. Unfortunately for him, he was up against Celine Dion's Heart will go on business.
At this point he had broken away from his original college band---Heatmiser--. I heard a copy of "mic city sons" Elliott and his band mate Neil Gist would alternate singing songs. Very obvious which were Mr. Smiths. His melodies, his almost whisper like singing, broke him apart from all the others.
Other noticeable notes that you should take down are that are of utter importance. He began his solo career with either/or. That is a great album, with songs like "big nothing" & "pictures of me". Other albums include-roman candle, figure 8, not in correct order, sorry. His final gift was "from a basement on a hill" which was released after his death.
Slowly I learned more about what was behind his death and i became a detective of sorts to see what i could find out. Some have said it was an apparent suicide. It was believed that there was a note that said "i'm sorry, elliot" Now just so you know his real name was Stephen Smith, but in college he adopted the name elliott. After ten years did he forget how to spell the name he had chosen for himself? The story released was that his girlfriend came home to find him with a knife coming out of his chest. He was rushed to the hospital, and surgeons were successful repairing the tears in his heart. Despite that, he passed only hours after the surgery. Initially it was ruled a suicide, but then it was changed to a possible homicide. The reasons that I learned from the book by Mr. Nugent was it was changed into a homicide for three different reasons. Unfortuately it is not direct quotes from the book, but I will give you the jist. There was that suicides who stab themselves will hurt themselves but not kill themselves. The second was his girlfriend refused to talk with the police about it. Last but not least, there were no hesitation marks, and his shirt was still on. Now what is odd about it, is if he was going to stab his heart, that is not typical for a stabbing suicide. Also there were no hesitation marks. That would be present because the person trying to kill themselves will not intitally get it right through the first time, so there would be marking or cuts around the main stab.
There was no sign of forced entry and that could make anyone think, he actually did it. Like other ongoing investigations such as Kurt Cobain, Tupac, Notorious BIG, even going as far back as Jim Morrison and Elvis. Will Elliott Smith be another unsolved music artist murder? I know he does not rank as high as the others mentioned, but he did have a great following in college radio.
So it seems that Elliott Smith put on his most intense final show of his life taken by himself. To many questions to be leave me unsettled. Surely you may feel the same way at this point. I will surely suggest picking up a copy of "Elliott Smith & the Big Nothing" and all, yes every single one of them, of his music. See if you can decipher what many like me, are still wondering. How literal was he when he sang-"not surprised at all but really why should i be? so sick and tired of all these pictures of me, completely wrong, totally wrong..." Many of his songs are known to have double meanings with drug references or maybe that is what he wanted us to believe.
Maybe he should have won that Oscar after all, but in a completely different category.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHDbCC0Ongs
this is my fave song by him...it was also in the movie-the royal tenenbaums, ironically when luke wilson's character is trying to commit suicide...
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