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April 21, 2005

BLOOD AND THE MOON -- Remembering Elliot Smith

I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world’s eyes
As though they wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there’s more enterprise
In walking naked. — W.B. Yeats (”A Coat”)

It was in a Seoul pub called the 3 Alleys, and months after the fact, that I first found out….
Our group of friends had discovered a real spirit; tequila shots were drunk in rapid succession, and we had a healthy monopoly on the jukebox — it was snowing outside and we had the open fire within reach.
And it was against this backdrop that I overheard the news that Elliot Smith had stabbed himself to death.
I was in South Korea and the distance between Smith’s death and the news reaching my ears was substantial.
Whatever.
Elliot Smith was dead and the news proved shocking — surprised at the grim cocktail of sadness and repulsion settling in my stomach, I took refuge in the bathroom. I waited out the tides of shock in isolation.
And again — whatever. My reactions are secondary to the fact that a terrible history of depression had destroyed one of our greatest living singer-songwriters. And so that’s what I’ll address here, having established my part in this devil’s story.
Smith’s history is indeed a grim one. A victim of child-abuse, the dramatic internalisation of the external that occurs with children took place with fevered levels of corruption. Smith never overcame the seeds that were ruthlessly planted in his youth, and a path of alcoholism, drug dependence and impossible creativity were to be the defining points of a tragic life. And this leads us to an interesting question, concerning the very nature, the engine, of creative output….
There is no doubt that Smith’s music is sculpted by very loud strains of melancholy. His work is a dramatic example of catharsis — indeed his pain is so evident it’s at times difficult to shake shameless pangs of voyeurism when listening to him.
Smith’s tragic life, and melancholic output, are well known — and to add to this I think it’s safe to say Smith was inordinately sensitive; he became Vonnegut’s mine-shaft canary, the creature employed for its super-sensitivity, sent down mine-shafts ahead of humans to test for poisonous gases. Well, Smith employed himself, but we all used him and he never came back. This sounds pretty close to Lennon or Hendrix or Morrison, doesn’t it? Or how about Bukowski, Hemingway and Brautigan? Not all of these characters suicided, but the marriage of creativity and tragedy defined them all, as did their acute sensitivity. Of course any such list is designed to strengthen argument superficially — one could compile a simple list of artists that produced art without using tragedy as a muse, but what remains clear is how much pain was required for Smith to create what he did.
Let’s go back a little… a child can be likened to blotting paper up until the age (it varies) when relatively sophisticated intellectual and emotional apparatuses are constructed — before this point, before certain ”filters” are established (a product of experience, hence age), the child absorbs environment, and it leaves something permanent in the back of the brain — tragedy will invariably leave a dark ink stain, largely indelible, if the spill is made before the time a child suitably matures to be able to deal effectively with the event.
Well, Smith was a victim of child abuse, and never seemed capable of losing the stains in his brain. He tried valiantly, however, and now we, the listeners, occupy the strange position of being able to enjoy the products of these fatal pains.

***

After hearing the news, I went home and put my Elliot Smith CDs on and continued drinking. If I tried hard enough, I thought I could see Elliot remembering forgotten beauties whilst at the piano, or the bar, but it slid and never returned and for what he must have thought were the best of reasons he ended it with a knife.

***

I’m damned sorry Smith was abused — I’m damned sorry any human is — and Smith’s history made him beautiful in the eyes of everyone except himself. So be it, this world is often marked with tragedy, but Smith is someone to have mined gold from it for the rest of us. Be thankful, because he died so that we could hear it.

Posted by Marty at April 21, 2005 11:29 AM

Comments

Posted by: bron at May 22, 2006 1:22 PM

Posted by: marty at May 22, 2006 1:43 PM