dear elliott,

I always listen to your cover of Beatles' "I'm Only Sleeping" first, you sound so happy. It's 2002, you're playing in Portland's Satyricon. Remember that's when you invited several people onstage to sing with you and one of the audience members onstage is so into harmonizing the song that you can't help but let out a chuckle while you're singing. There's also a part before that where you say "you gotta get closer to the mic" to a girl on the stage and she laughs. There's a sudden pause during the song, which you fill with a grin and, "oh shit, what's the next part?" When you finish the song and you tell the Portland crowd you have one song left and ask if they want a new or old song, there's silence and then an uproar. People shout their favorite songs and others tell you to play both, and by the time I realize the track ends, I'm listening to another live track which follows right after it on my iTunes.

It's you singing "King's Crossing" at the Henry Fonda Theater, it's January 2003. In the beginning of the recording, I let my mind imagine what it was like. You on the stage alone and a sea of faces all turned to you and you let out a shaky "Hi, how are you y'all?" I can make out some people shouting "We love you," and you return the same three words like you would to your friends in a teasing genuine way, and I can just make out that smile of yours I've seen so many times in photographs, and you follow it by a "thanks for coming..." but sometimes I can't make it through that track, it tears me apart, when you sing "because I took my own insides out", with the last word landing so harshly into the air before it echoes through the theater, how you sound so hurt and in pain.

I never really know what to do when this day makes its way to the front of the calendar, I just know I miss you and I can only hope you finally found happiness and I'll see you in heaven, that is if there is one and if there is one, you're sure to be in it.


Download + Donate:

» I'm Only Sleeping (02.19.2000 @ Satyricon, Portland) | Elliott Smith
» King's Crossing (01.31.2003 @ Henry Fonda Theater, Los Angeles) | Elliott Smith

~anne