It's been a long week, overloaded with pressing responsibilities and unnecessary burdens. I'm glad it's over. Everyone has these sorts of weeks, where a person is always just a step behind or a few paces off the beaten trail. It's comforting, in a way, to know that this week's feelings of sturm und drang aren't unique to me. Someone else will undeservedly inherit the burden that I hope I've successfully cast off.
When in this sort of funk, some people reassure themselves with joyful thoughts of a better tomorrow. Others share saccharine-sweet pictures of otters, koalas, pugs, or other adorable critters. Some settle into the sofa and watch comedies to lighten the mood. In any case, it's the sense of well-being that follows such activities that allows a person to feel better.
At other times, wallowing in the funk isn't as bad as it sounds. When a fog of melancholy descends, erasing perspective and social instinct, lingering in the haze can be beautiful. Aimlessly driving at night, which used to be a favorite activity of mine, became less of a means of transporting myself from point A to B and more of a means of transporting myself from one confused state of mind to another, less worried one.
Being lost in melancholy can, of course, be very destructive. Anyone who has lingered too long can attest to its proclivity to act as a quagmire. Anyone who has lingered there can also tell you that at certain times, one's mind needs to be as lost in heaviness as it can be in the lightness of being alive.
There's no music I know that sounds better in one of these heavy hazes than the music of Elliott Smith. If you're already a fan, you know that his music isn't just good for sadbastard moments, but it does take on an entirely different tone when one's soul is leaden. Other music is too hopeful to allow one to pause and reflect, while some music is too depressing to bear for any appreciable amount of time. More importantly, the intimate, highly personal lyrics and the ethereal nature of his voice lend themselves well to being still and silent in the face of one's own storm.
Today also happens to be the ten year anniversary of his death. I'm not interested in debating the particulars of his passing, as it was a sad event punctuating the struggle-filled life of a person I didn't truly know. What I am interested in thinking about is how, a decade after his death, I'm still so deeply moved by his music. If you haven't listened to any of the links above, click play below and see why I'm making such a fuss about him.
I'm certain that only my closest friends care about why certain musicians or songs resonate so deeply for me and explaining that isn't even the point. Being lost in my own melancholy-fogged world is inscrutable to any other soul, as it should be. But I do have more than a few friends whose appreciation of Elliott Smith converges with mine, often for the same reasons.
You see, it doesn't matter how deeply lost in our own funk we think we might be. Our worlds are always overlapping. It isn't just that by reading this, part of me has spilled over into you. It's that by hearing these songs that have been enjoyed by a million other people before, we realize that we're constantly being filled with the same substances as every other person. The mixtures and blends might vary wildly, but the same streams that poured themselves into you also poured into me and everyone else that you know.
Though the particulars of our own storms and stresses might have never emerged before, there is nothing new under the sun. There is nothing you're burdened by that hasn't been borne by another before you. I say that, not to flatten out the distinctiveness of our experiences, but to put them in concert with one another. Around us, every day, a symphony of diverse emotional states harmonizes into the grand, tragic song of humanity. We do our best to ignore its persistent presence in the air. We feel driven to inflate the importance of our own struggles, above all others, to drown out the sounds of difference drifting through.
Yet, there it is. The songs of a chronically depressed singer/songwriter echo in the ears of a million listeners a decade after his death, reminding us all that we're highly distinct beings, paradoxically constituted by the same fountain of shared experiences. If, during this week, you see the person who has been forced to undeservedly shoulder a heaviness like that which I cast off, lend a hand. Their troubles might not look quite the same as yours, but they're made of the same substances and they'll weigh on your shoulders in due time. Perhaps the same friend you help today will be the friend to put a shoulder under another's burden next week. In time, a shoulder will appear alongside yours, to help bear what burdens you must.
And if you like what you heard above, I promise you won't be disappointed by searching for more of his music.
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