'My life had stood - a Loaded Gun- in corners - til a day/The Owner passed identified-And carried Me away/Though I than He - may longer live/He longer must-than I- For I have but the power to kill/Without-the power to die-' My Life had stood--a Loaded Gun by Emily Dickinson
When he took both the power to kill and to die by stabbing himself in the heart on October 21 2003, I began to think almost daily about Elliot Smith. Around the same time, I watched the documentary "Loaded Gun: Life, Death and Dickinson" and began imagining Elliot Smith in love with Emily Dickinson. I see him leaving flowers at her headstone (died: 1886). I glimpse him studying this fierce scribe in Amherst's gloomy caverns— the Massachusetts town where locals referred to resident Miss Dickinson as "the shadow," because she was such a total recluse. Coincidentally, Hampshire College in Amherst is where Elliot Smith's began his education in Philosophy, and where I'm certain, he read all the poems by his lyrical soul mate.
"Defiantly unknowable;" "a killer poet;" "Private person;" scholars say this of the life and works of Emily Dickinson. The same words could apply as easily to Elliot Smith. I interviewed Ellliot Smith in the spring of 1997, the day before the album Either/Or was finished, and we talked about books. Elliot said his reading list was not out of the 19th century yet. He added, "I'm usually reading something that someone's giving me shit for because it's not Gen-X." I believe now that Elliot Smith professed his love for Emily Dickinson's 19th century poems, and I wish I had picked up the cue.
So, I've turned something Elliot Smith said more than five years ago into a wing-nut theory. It's the revisionism typical of the bereft. It's typical of the living to piece together scraps left by the dead; a refusal to let the unanswered questions go to the grave.
I believe Dickinson's poems are as parchment paper over some of Elliot Smith's lyrics. The song "A Question Mark" on XO speaks to Dickinson's potent inscription to God or the great unknown: /Giving back a little hatred now to the world/Cuz it treated you bad/You couldn't keep the great unknown/From making you mad. There's a grudging and irritable agnosticism in many of Dickinson's poems. Take 'Poem 1552': Those--dying then/Knew where they went/They went to God's Right Hand/That Hand is amputated now/And God cannot be found/The abdication of Belief /Makes the Behavior small/Better an ignis fatuus/Than no illume at all-- .
![Voices & Visions: Emily Dickinson [VHS]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/411QVKDX8QL._SL120_.jpg)
Article comments
1 - Craig P
Very poignant stuff, Jennie. Interesting parallel with Dickinson. All just makes me sad. I guess we should've known his was to be a doomed life. Last time I saw a picture of him (of 1 or 2 years ago) he did not look very good at all. Trite but true: we have his music as legacy.
2 - Betresse
I liked your article. I am 35 and the first time I heard Elliott Smith was 6 months ago when my 18 year old son was learning to play some of his songs on the guitar. And as he sang my ears were alerted to the emotion, heartache and mesage. I asked him, did you write that and he said no it's Elliott Smith. We heard some of his songs and I really liked them. I told my son, hey we have got to see him in concert. That was when he told me that he had killed himself. It looked like he wanted to cry when he told me. I was sad. Sad for my son, for Elliott Smith, and for all of us who sturggle with depression. I wish Elliott Smith could have been happy just to be alve and to be able to play music. I wonder what it would have took for him to realize that life and music are the greatest gifts of the universe and he deserved to have those gifts.
3 - rebecca
eh. his name is eliotT. god.
4 - Suzy
Interesting writing, Jenni.....I enjoyed your article. You're fortunate to have been able to spend some time inteviewing Elliott (he spelled his name with two t's).
5 - Suzy
Interesting writing, Jenni.....I enjoyed your article. You're fortunate to have been able to spend some time inteviewing Elliott (he spelled his name with two t's).
6 - Lonelyfugitive
Elliott probably would've probably died sooner were it not for his poetry and music. It kept him alive. Few singer-songwriters will ever come close. Even Lennon-McCartney seem a bit frivolous and trivial in comparison to Smith's worldview. There are a few obscure artists out there that remind me of Elliott Smith. Peasant. William Fitzsimmons. Josh Ritter. Egil Olsen. Bon Iver. Luke Siedle. Fionn Regan. But nothing will ever replace him.
7 - Alex Minneker
The quote is, "Got a broken heart, and your name on my cast"