I had a really emotional evening a couple of nights ago. One of my favorite musicians took his own life on Wednesday. It was hard to hear the news in and of itself. It was even harder to hear his music later that night.

I've had "Either/Or," "XO," and "Figure 8" in my c.d. changer since that awful day. It's really hard to hear his music so far after the fact.

Apparently, Elliott Smith had an incredibly difficult struggle with both alcohol and drugs. It's always sad to hear stories about people who are not able to overcome their own personal alcohol and drug demons. From stories I've read, I've gathered a sense that he would often times not be able to make it through his live shows because he'd either forget the lyrics or be too drugged to go on. His audiences would often time make it into a joke, and razz him about it. Someone should have been pulling him aside and getting him help. I'm sure that was attempted, but apparently to no avail.

It's just a sad, sad thing on so many levels. I have read that Elliott Smith was just a really nice guy in every way. He was gracious for his fans and humble in his popularity. We may never know what lead Elliott Smith to do what he did. No one trully knows why any suicide victim did what they did. People may have ideas, but no one really knows his final thought processes.

But it's also sad for fans of his music, because we feel somewhat robbed of some really great music. When an artist who is nothing but extremely young and talented passes away, all we have to rely on is their past catalog. Whether it's Jimi, Janis, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, or Elliott Smith, we always will hear their great music and wonder "what if."

It's sad. Thankfully, he has a new album pretty much completely finished. So we should hear some more of his music sometime soon hopefully. But after that, nothing.

I guess I should be thankful for what he did do. His music is really some of my favorite music. Just this past weekend, I was thinking to myself that the sky was the limit for Elliott Smith. I was driving down to San Antonio with "XO" on the cd changer, and just singing along. I really was getting pretty excited that he'd be releasing a new cd soon. Little did I know that it would be his last.

matt out