26 Years Later: Elliott Smith (1995) and Substance Use
During my teenage years, I read many books from the Beat Generation, a literary movement of artists and writers from the ’50s that romanticized and glorified recreational drug use. The way they portrayed their effects and the lifestyle that emerged from its usage — from the use of alcohol to heroin to prescription pills — made me imagine different worlds I could access, and escape from whatever mundanity the “real” world had to offer.
In contrast, 1995’s Elliott Smith, the folk singer-songwriter’s bleakest album from his consistent and excellent discography, makes drug use evoke the feeling of never wanting to get out of bed. You’re instead compelled to empathize with him throughout its 12 tracks, as Elliott Smith resembles one wasting away through every song.
Although Smith did say that the drug themes on his second LP were read at a surface level, it’s difficult to separate what happened eight years later with his substance use problems and suicide.
To get it out of the way — I’m not saying that drug usage is inherently wrong — there are both positive and negative effects of using substances recreationally or medically. It all depends on how it affects you personally and the people surrounding you.
In 2021, we still have a severe opioid crisis on hand, all while in the middle of a pandemic. Still, addiction is just one aspect of society’s degrading mental health. As Smith has even said, the use of dope on Elliott Smith was more meant as a vehicle to talk about dependency and non-self-sufficiency, which are also issues in dealing with our mental well-being.
The overt heroin metaphors on “Needle in the Hay” and even the song’s pairing with a pretty jarring scene from The Royal Tenenbaums come to mind. Beyond its exterior meaning, the song was more about the infiltration of drugs in the Pacific Northwest’s music scene in the ’90s, according to an old friend. Sadly, 30 years later, it’s only getting worse. Elliott Smith-inspired cult hero Alex G even wrote “Hope,” a doleful tune about losing friends to fentanyl and the grief that comes with it.
In the TV drama Euphoria, you can observe a similar parallel to the album’s themes of dependency through the protagonist Rue. As a teenager who just got out of rehab, she attempts to make a stable life for herself amidst the chaos of high school’s social pressures and dealing with her father’s death. Although she stops using, she ends up falling in love with Jules, who becomes a replacement for her past drug use. Jules suddenly becomes “The White Lady That Loves You More” from the album, just to “be thrown over just like before.”
Much of our tendency to turn to short-term pleasures result from experiencing negative experiences like sadness, trauma, and even boredom. Smith grew up in a chaotic environment, dealing with an abusive step-father liable to violence.
He faces these experiences on “Christian Brothers,” using the brand of liquor as his way of confronting the abuser. On “Southern Belle,” he sings about his mother’s torment, bringing up the tendency to conceal one’s suffering from an abusive situation (“Ain’t nobody looking now / Nobody, nothing’s said / No one’s about to shout / Nobody seeing red”).
After all, being a victim of abuse means a high chance of being stigmatized, as the fear of being distrusted by others becomes very apparent.
Through all the shit written about Elliott Smith’s life as someone that struggled with substance use, Smith continued to make good music and improve upon his songwriting, album after album. Writing and recording songs seemed like one of the only ways he could manage his trauma, yet to fans’s dismay, couldn’t keep him for long enough.
We can’t reduce his life — or anyone’s life for that matter — to that of one with a mental illness. In hindsight, Elliott Smith might be a character study of what was forthcoming to his life, but there was a lot more to Steven Paul “Elliott” Smith, the musician, the artist, the son, and the friend.
Some might not want to listen to this record because of the darkness it was enshrouded in, but to me, at least, it provided an expressive and honest account of what it was like to be in Smith’s shoes.
Although the members of The Beat Generation recognized drugs’ eye-opening impact on the psyche, many had also undergone its harmful effects, whether through suffering from an early death or hurting those around them. Jack Kerouac was probably a dick anyway. I’d rather listen to Elliott Smith in bed and experience his staggering but humble truth.
Here’s “Satellite,” one of my favourites from the record:
