My Guide.

Elliott Smith’s work is so important to me. Truly, his lyrics have turned my eyes inward on myself as well as inside of others. So many feelings he puts into his songs apply to my life, and I love him for being strong enough to share it all to the world. Seeing how movies like Good Will Hunting and Thumbsucker (great quality movies full of passion and soul) have chosen his songs for their entire soundtrack says something about him. As an artist, he did what so many people try to do: be honest in the most beautiful way possible. He did. And he helped me realize that my problems were not so strange or rare or shameful. He turned me onto writing when I was 14 and I am now 19, still writing every day and hope to turn that into something really helpful for other people. Seeing such pain turned into beauty changed me in a way that only makes me wish I could thank him. And I can’t, which is so sad, but I can only do my best to carry his ghost on through my work and to share his music with other people.

My bipolar disorder and my broken relationship with my family, mostly my mother, seemed so much easier to turn into art after discovering him. His music always reminds me to take the pain and turn it into something beautiful. And Elliott was so damn beautiful.

Thank you, Elliott, for all of the lives you’ve changed with your music. RIP.

(Submitted by aypurrclueless.)

(Source: elliottsmith)