Elliott Smith, Lies, and Betrayal

[shadow.]

I was reading some Elliott Smith interviews the other day when I came across this piece:

http://www.laweekly.com/music/music/sleepwalker/1289/

It started out like most of the other articles about Elliott Smith, talking about celebrity, making records, and suicide. Then, it examines a quickie-biography that was put out soon after the suicide (for the record, I don’t think that it was his girlfriend). The most important part is here:

[ QUOTE ]
“If Elliott Smith and the Big Nothing has any merit, it’s that the book offers one major revelation. Both his friend Bill Santen and Pete Krebs, a musician whom he toured with in the mid-’90s, are quoted as saying the songwriter hadn’t used heroin even once back when he recorded his second, self-titled album for Kill Rock Stars… All of Nugent’s sources claim Smith hadn’t so much as touched heroin before he moved to L.A. in 2000. Rather, they say he used his imagination to summon the drug as a metaphor to describe a person strung out on day-to-day existence, on relationships, on life itself.”

[/ QUOTE ]

This article contains the first mention that I have read about Smith not doing heroin until MUCH later on in his life. Like the author of this article, my first reaction was pure betrayal.

If the truth is that Smith didn’t use heroin until after moving to L.A., until after the KRS record, until after Coming Up Roses then what can we believe from Smith? Naturally, I expect the standard line, “his songs weren’t about drugs.” You’re right, they weren’t about drugs. But the underlying message in most of his songs on the KRS record were predicated upon the assumption that Smith was writing from this unique perspective, this perspective that allowed him uncommon insight into the human condition. If he actually didn’t have this perspective firsthand and rather he was just assuming the persona of the addict, the degenerate, and the trash of this planet, then must we not question all of his conclusions about the human condition? Must we not disregard some of his insights?

It’s well known that Kurt Cobain was a pathological liar. He had a normal, middle-class childhood and his angst was primarily derivative of hormones or whatever. That’s fine; he still made incredible music built upon repetition. It’s that musical base that built legions of fans, dozens of copycats, and (arguably) an entire movement of music. But I think that Smith is something completely different—it’s not about those existentialist yowls of despair—it’s about examining the human condition through different eyes and then drawing unique conclusions based upon that unique vision. But if we suddenly find out that that vision was fundamentally false, then what must we think about those fundamental conclusions?

I’m not trying to diminish the music that Smith made. He made some of the most beautiful music this side of John Lennon (and it’s very obvious the influence that The Beatles had upon Smith). He certainly will remain one of the best artists of the 1990s and one of the more influential. Yet, music and lyrics are inextricably linked. If not, then we should just read Ginsberg and listen to Mozart. Thus we must question the answers (or at least an attempt at answers) that Smith gave to us in his sonic explorations.

My answer to my questioning of Smith remains incomplete. Like all the best literature and all the best music, Smith’s compositions were fundamentally about people—how they react to the world and how life can often overwhelm people be it in love or drugs or alcohol or death. If Smith did not actually experience the things that he wrote about, then naturally some of his conclusions must be inherently worth less than the conclusions of someone who did experience the things about which he wrote. But that doesn’t invalidate his conclusions entirely. He was still able to envision and use metaphor to examine some of life’s basic problems. But, as my writing undoubtedly shows, I have lingering doubts and confusions about the relevance of Elliott Smith. I guess what I’m trying to say is this: How can we attempt to answer life’s unbearable questions without experiencing life? The human condition is not something that can be examined from afar, or in a dream, or in great books with the expectation that one would have the same insights as someone who just actually gets right down in the middle of LIFE—with all of its grime and pain and disappointment. Is a construction worker better able to answer life’s riddles than a philosopher?

Ultimately what Elliott Smith left us was a catalog of one person’s view on life—on drugs, on booze, on love, and on despair. His answers were presented with some of the most beautiful music of his era, but are these answers or dreams stolen from characters of Smith’s imagination?

[econophile]

didn't read the whole thing, but sounds like your argument rests on what the lit crit crowd calls the intentional fallacy. smith's songs are whatever you make of them.

[shadow.]

I'm familiar with the intentional fallacy and deconstruction. I don't necessarily subscribe to it, however. An author's experience, intention, and thematic exploration ARE knowable and ARE important, perhaps moreso than the reader's interpretation. Why? Because the author created it. I know that I'm into dangerous ground with the litcrit guys, but whatever.