By JULIET PEREZ
Staff Writer
(mentions suicide, drugs, self-harm and abuse)
Elliott Smith was a singer-songwriter who was born on August 6, 1969, in Omaha, Nebraska and died at 34 years old, on October 21, 2003. His death has remained a mystery since then. The belief that his fiancee, Jennifer Chiba killed him is a popular belief but a lot of people also believe that he killed himself. Important things to note about Elliott’s death was that 1. It was not a surprise to people when the rumor of his suicide began to rise, he was a drug addict, an alcoholic and he was depressed, 2. He would constantly talk or make jokes about ending his life, 3. He and his fiancee had gotten in a fight the day he died, 4. He already had a scar in the same place he was stabbed, indicating that he may have tried to kill himself the same way previously, 4. After years of addiction, the night he died he was two months sober, 5. He had no “hesitation wounds”, he was stabbed through his clothes, and there were possible “defense wounds” on his body, and 6. He engaged in a lot of self-harm. There are multiple aspects to Elliott’s life that brought him down, such as the music industry itself, his addiction to multiple drugs, alcohol, and pain, and a childhood full of abuse. There are numerous songs that he wrote about dealing with depression and addiction, as well as how the music industry impacted his life negatively.
In 1999 he moved to LA after he released and toured his 4th album “XO”, and turned to heroin for the first time. This addiction is a recurring theme in his music, and in a lot of songs, you can see how emotionally dependent he was on the drug. The use of heroin addiction in his earlier albums can be seen as a way to understand his internal addiction to pain and self-harm to show how deep the addiction to the feelings was. His move to LA was a low point in his life where he distanced himself from his friends and family, did hard drugs, and drank too much. In his song “King’s Crossing” heroin is a big theme. This is one of my favorite songs by him, although extremely depressing, I feel like it perfectly depicts how he feels in almost a storytelling manner. It is almost a warning of the huge endeavor you take part in when you delve your life into hardcore drugs like heroin. In the song he says “The method acting that pays my bills keeps the fat man feeding in Beverly Hills, I got a heavy metal mouth, it hurls obscenity and I get my check from the trash treasury because I took my own insides out” clearly hinting at the frustration that comes with putting out your emotions and darkness for the world to hear just for it to profit some fatcat in the hills, he’s “taking his insides out” just for someone else’s personal gain. He also says “all I wanna do now is inject my ex-wife” the ex-wife being heroin, indicating he wants to relapse, he goes on to say “It’s Christmas time and the needles on the tree, a skinny Santa is bringing something to me. His voice is overwhelming and his speech is slurred and I only understand every other word.” I think this is one of the most powerful parts of the song because he fully shows that he understands what heroin does to someone, slurred speech, weight loss, cluttered brain. And yet he still shows that he clearly wants to slip back into the addiction that once ruined him. I also think it’s interesting how he uses Christmas and Santa to represent a dealer and a buyer.
Over the course of his career, Elliott’s addictions to heroin and alcohol quickly escalated, often mediated by short interventions. As he slips into heroin’s hold in “Little One”, we catch a glimpse of his internal conflict of not wanting to be an addict but knowing that this is his only way of getting out of his mind. He tells himself “One more little one, I’ll go down and stay down and keep the evil away”, which recounts an addict’s phenomenon of giving in until they fully surrender to the substance. While active in addiction, he begins to make false promises of staying clean, only emphasizing the evilness of the drug. During From a Basement on The Hill, he writes a goodbye to heroin and pain, “This is not my life, It’s just a fond farewell to a friend”. The “friend” is a metaphor for the heroine who tries to reel him in, “Really I just want to dance, good and evil match perfectly, it’s a great romance”. Even after his goodbye, he is pictured moments later with veins of disappearing ink and vomiting into the sink, to which he says he will never win over suffering because the only ways he knows how to cope is through drugs or seeking an end to his life.
And finally, “Between the Bars” off of his album “Either/Or”. Although his most popular song I feel as if there is a misconception about the song. Although seen as a love song for a lot of people, it is actually a song about Elliott’s alcoholism. The title itself already could mean a number of things, 1. Bars as in the place to go drink, 2. Bars as in prison bars, or 3. A bottle kissing you “ in-between the bars” implies being imprisoned by alcohol, a metaphor for prison bars. I personally think the third is the most accurate because the song is of course about his addiction to alcohol. This is also one of my favorite songs by him, it is written so well and so instrumentally beautiful, written from an anthropomorphized perspective of an alcohol bottle, almost like a love song written by alcohol for Elliott. The song almost makes it seem like he is in a relationship with alcohol, in which the alcohol is personified as a sweet loving partner who only wants the best for you, but is actually abusive and emotionally manipulative. The song starts off by calling out his insecurities and then immediately reassuring him after, “Drink up, baby. Stay up all night, with the things you could do, you won’t but you might, the potential you’ll see that you’ll never be, the promises you’ll only make.” Knowing that he has no faith in himself to be better, or to keep the promises he makes to others, maybe to stay sober? Then goes on to say, “Drink up with me now and forget all about the pressure of days, do what I say and I’ll make you okay… and drive them away, the images stuck in your head. People you’ve been before, that you don’t want around anymore”. The bottle is persuading him to drink, giving him false promises and seductive persuasions, because it will make him forget about everything on his mind that seems to make him upset or stress him out, that he wants to escape from, as long as he does what “she” says. In another line we see the weird manipulative dynamic between Elliott and alcohol, almost like an overbearing, controlling partner, “I’ll kiss you again, between the bars, where I’m seeing you there with your hands in the air, waiting to finally be caught… drink up one more time, and I’ll make you mine, keep you apart, deep in my heart, separate from the rest, where I like you the best.” I believe the arms in the air might be referring to Elliott being sober and having a good time without the alcohol but eventually, he will get caught up and slip back into drinking, until he belongs to the alcohol again. “Separate from the rest”, friends and family, and all to “her”, is where we see that he may feel controlled and useless under the spell of the alcohol, “she” wants him to be hers and only hers. This song is brilliant in every possible way, I can’t even explain how much I love it and how much I want others to realize how smart he was. Although this song does not mention death, it’s important to acknowledge how bad Elliott struggled with addiction because addiction is a leading factor in suicide.
His death has remained a mystery for almost 19 years now and I believe it’s important to remember him and his life because of how much of himself he put out there in his most vulnerable state of mind.