“We were walking down the red carpet right behind Madonna, and it was like a strobe light of flashbulbs. Then when we went by, the flashbulbs went off in this very mild, condescending way. I finally saw a tape of the show but I wish I hadn’t. It was so bizarre that I was there. It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen on the Academy Awards, and it was me.”
Elliott Smith
“I’m gonna play at the Oscars. I hope it’s not really ridiculous. The whole thing is so weird; I’m sort of blown out of the water by it. It’ll be a kick! I thouhgt I’d dress up as a pirate. I wanted to talk to Bill Conti to see if he could sort of spice up the music with a sea shanty feel. I could swing in on a rope and make the other contestants walk the plank as I stand on the bow.”
Elliott Smith
“Because I didn’t jump up and down about it, a lot of people thought I didn’t appreciate it. The truth of the matter is that I was in the studio trying to record my new record, but every morning I had to do a five- or 10-minute phone interview with people like USA Today who asked questions such as ‘How does it feel to have your dream come true?’ After a while, it started getting on my nerves and I found myself asking back, ‘I don’t know, whose dream are you talking about?’ Yes, getting nominated was flattering, and being a part of it was kinda fun in its own way, but it was nothing more than that. I guess now everyone thinks I’m some kind of morose folk singer.
I’m used to people writing nonsense about me. I’ve read stuff that said I was a junkie, that I was Minnie Driver’s boyfriend and that Gus Van Sant rescued me from playing coffeehouses. I don’t know why people write the things that they do, but I can’t do anything about it. Unfortunately, there’s more of them than there are of me.”
Elliott Smith
“It felt like it took about a year to walk out to the microphone. And I was wearing these shoes that I’d never worn before and they were all slippery. And I was like, ‘Oh, Jesus, what if I slip?’ “
Elliott Smith
“It seemed like it was happening in slow motion. It was really weird. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t something I’d want to do again. But it was kind of fun in its way. I was prepared to keep a lot of distance from Celine Dion. I thought she’d blow in with her bodyguards and be a weird superstar to everybody. But she wasn’t like that at all. She really disarmed me and won me over. I had fully armored myself against having to be crushed by her presence. But she was the nicest person I’ve met in a while. Afterward I’d get these indie-rock kids saying, ‘I can’t believe you had to hold Celine Dion’s hand.’ I said, ‘I liked holding her hand because she’s a nice person. In fact, right now you’re, being much more narrow-minded and shallow than she is. You’re in a very backward position here. You should rethink it.'”
Elliott Smith
” Ce truc des Oscars… ça dû donner un coup de pouce à sa carrière, mais pas du tout à sa vie. Le foutre sur la scène des Oscars comme un personnage de dessin animé, dans son costume blanc, à jouer une chanson triste alors que les gens beuglaient à propos du Titanic qui coulait et la chanson de merde qui allait avec… il avait l’air d’une sorte de blague vivante. « Regarde, il porte un trois pièces blanc, il a l’air tout stressé. Haha. » C’était pas le meilleur contexte pour un talent comme le sien. D’un côté, je peux voir ça comme la percée des nos potes et moi à l’intérieur du monde bien bizarre de l’entertainment. Sauf que de l’autre côté, ça ressemblait quand même à une caricature. A Portland, certains disaient déjà qu’Elliott n’était« plus des nôtres »… Continue reading
“Elliott Smith could be forgiven for wondering how he got himself into this mess. A slight, dour-looking man clad in jeans and yellow T-shirt, with a wool cap pulled down low over his mop of lank brown hair, Smith was a reluctant émigré from the world of alternative rock music. He was far more comfortable on the stages of small rock clubs than swankier joints like the Shrine. But in addition to being one of the more acclaimed of the morosely talented singer-songwriters on the ferociously hip Portland, Oregon-based independent label Kill Rock Stars, Smith was also an Academy Award nominee. Director Gus Van Sant, who came from the ranks of independent film, had seen Smith perform in Portland coffeehouses and drafted him to add several songs to the soundtrack of Good Will Hunting. When that movie became a hit, it gave the soundtrack enough visibility that “Miss Misery”, which Smith had written specifically for the film, won a nomination.
“A chaque fois qu’il parlait des Oscars par la suite, il était un peu doux-amer. Très Elliott, finalement. Il était obsédé par le fait que Jack Nicholson était juste là, en face de lui, en train de le fixer. Il ne s’en remettait pas, il trouvait ça dingue. Ah oui, et aussi que Madonna avait l’air d’une sacrée pétasse. Elle avait vraiment une attitude de merde quand elle a présenté Elliott à la cérémonie, c’était bizarre. En discutant après, on se marrait sur la nullité de Madonna. Continue reading
“‘Misfit’… That’s coming from a world I don’t live in, that nobody I know lives in. Sometimes people mistake contrivance for some sort of well-adjustedness. I was kind of a little more pointed about it back then. … I wasn’t trying to land some television appearance to validate something I love to do. The weirdest thing was, I thought that either it would be exciting in a preposterous way – such a trip being there that it would be great ’cause it’s so freakish – or I thought it would be really negative, like I’d regret having agreed to do it.”
Elliott Smith
so flawed and drunk and perfect still 