Happy Birthday to Elliott Smith

Today, Elliott Smith would have turned 38. Were he still around, he might be readying the follow-up to From a Basement on the Hill. Or perhaps he'd be more focused on running the New Monkey studio, helping out L.A. musicians get their albums recorded in the highest quality while paying next to nothing. He might have married his girlfriend Jennifer Chiba by this time, and maybe they'd feel comfortable enough at this point to really start thinking about a family. Certainly, he'd still be focused on the charitable causes that meant so much to him, such as helping abused children find their voices through art.

Elliott made some great mistakes in his life, but what made up for that was the wellspring of compassion that he showed, to his family and friends, even to complete strangers, and to those who only knew of him from album covers and that voice on the headphones and that tiny guy sitting on a chair up on stage, not always getting every note right, but always getting the sentiment across perfectly.

When it comes down to it, were he still around, it wouldn't matter to some people, even those who love his music most, whether he was still recording new songs. We would just want to know that he's okay, because at this point he deserved it.

We miss you, Elliott. We're always going to miss you, and we still hope you're okay.