Elliott Smith Made Music for the Sad Kids
October 2024 will mark the 21-year anniversary of singer/songwriter Elliott Smith’s death. Smith wrote intensely personal songs about his struggles with depression, alcoholism and drug addiction. His music was intricate with layered vocals and sweet melodies worthy of Brian Wilson. He possessed a soft tenor whisper belying his weathered face and melancholic lyrics. He was a fragile creative and his pain was our pain. As his ex-girlfriend musician Mary Lou Lord said, “Elliott made music for the sad kids.”
He was born Steven Paul Smith in 1969 in Omaha, Nebraska. His parents divorced when he was six months old. He moved with his mother Bunny, a music teacher, to Duncanville, Texas. He had a difficult childhood saying he might’ve been sexually abused by his stepfather. He wrote about this period in the tune “Some Song” featuring the lyrics “Charlie beat you up week after week and when you grow up you’re going to be a freak.”
Smith learned to play piano and guitar by the time he was nine. He wrote his first song “Fantasy” at age ten. At 14, he moved to Portland, Oregon with his father Gary Smith, a psychologist. He began experimenting with drugs and alcohol. After graduating from Hampshire College in Massachusetts in 1991, he formed the band Heatmiser with classmate Neil Gust. They moved to Oregon and released four albums. Smith worked odd jobs in…
