Elliott Smith: “Been pushed away and I’ll never come back”

We are coming up on the 16th anniversary of Elliott Smith’s death. This was popular topic of conversation amongst certain people and in certain parts of the Internet on the 10th anniversary back in 2013. I suspect it will be again in four years on the 20th anniversary. I’m not sure we should only stop to reflect on things like this in decade-length increments.

To those of you who may not be familiar, Elliott Smith was a fantastic artist who found his niche as a haunting and strikingly original solo multi-instrumentalist from the mid-1990s until his death in 2003. I personally dislike dudes who sing while playing acoustic guitars, but classifying Elliott Smith as one of those guys is like calling The Wire a cop show.

Anyway, back in 2013 Grantland (RIP) did a nice roundup of many re-issued and newly written articles on Elliott. This is strongly recommended for those of you who have both the interest and the time.

Notable amongst these pieces is a long, detailed and exceptional oral history (including interviews with 18 people who were very close to Elliott) done by a writer for Pitchfork. This piece has great photos, video clips, and songs interspersed throughout and is really more of a multimedia immersion into Elliott Smith than a simple article.