so flawed and drunk and perfect still

“I can’t find anything or anyone I really want to be besides myself. There’s a lot of things I want to do, nothing I really want to be.”

“I’d like to be in love with somebody. Pretty much the same thing that everybody else wants - to be totally alive and not be deadened down by the way things are… I don’t know if I really have any other goals.”

“I was going to move to New York, but now I’m not. This [ Portland] is where I’m from, and I’m going to stick with it. I probably will live in New York for a while, but I’m not dying to do it anymore. My problems won’t be any different in New York than they are here. I can’t pretend anymore like I could just be anybody. That was part of the attraction of moving to New York – that I could go there and be anybody. I’m through with that. I can’t just be anybody. There are things about me that would be present in New York, just the same as here.” 

“It sounds like I am being really pessimistic and awful to be like “I’m never going to get the carrot. I’m always going to be a failure in a certain way,” but it is a failure that means nothing to me. By accepting that I am not going to be at the top of the charts, it frees me up from all that crap like “Oh, I gotta be at the top of the charts.” Because if I felt like that, my god, I’d never get anything done. I’d hate everything I’d do.“

“Do you remember me?”

Elliott Smith

“I was good at taking tests because the answer is always embedded in the question. It’s an accidental little skill.”

https://www.facebook.com/elliottsmithpictures/

thanks Paula

“You’ve heard of artists and athletes who are so cool and powerful they’re described as “lights out.” And you’ve heard of “unplugged” concerts. Well, the all-time coolest Elliott Smith show in Nashville, which took place the night of May 9, 2000, was LITERALLY “lights out” and LITERALLY “unplugged.”

Here’s what happened: Elliott was touring with an L.A.-based stoner band called Whiskey Biscuit. At 8 or 9 p.m. that night, Wiskey Biscuit opened the show, performing their entire set perfectly normally, although their lead singer looked like he was going to nod off at any moment.

Then, just moments before Elliott Smith was to hit the stage, a mini-disaster struck. The entire venue (the now-defunct 328 Performance Hall) went absolutely PITCH BLACK…as in, absolutely no lights whatsoever. Then, as hundreds of us stood in utter darkness, we suddenly saw a candle being lighted on stage….then another…then another. In the next moment, the short, thin, fragile-looking silhouette—then body—of Elliott Smith could be seen, and he was suddenly talking to us.

“Everyone,” he said, “please move as close to the stage as you can, and I’ll sing as loud as I can for you.” We were about to see an Elliott Smith concert as Elliott might have presented it in your living room—with only his guitar, and without any amplification whatsoever. And the crowd didn’t mind in the least. As a matter of fact, it was as if the crowd enjoyed it MORE, because most of us were standing so close to Elliott, and because he was performing with such a gentle, generous spirit.

He went on to present everything from older classics like “Waltz #2” to new (then) songs such as “Everything Means Nothing to Me” … which resulted in the concert’s most touching moment, as dozens of girls spontaneously broke out singing the tune’s beautiful, ascending chorus.

The lights never came back on…and Elliott Smith never played Nashville again. (He died just three years later, at the age of 34.) It was, for me and many others I’m sure, far and away the most memorable and poignant concert we’ve ever witnessed.

May you rest in peace, Elliott.”