“I’ll fake it through the day with some help”

I have days where I have to pretend I’m fine. Sometimes music can make it easier to smile. :)

Empty inbox? Send in letters, guys!

Dearest Elliott,

It’s hard to believe I’ve been listening to you for over 7 years now. An ex boyfriend introduced me to you. It wasn’t much of a relationship but the best thing that came of it was learning about your music. I now own all of your albums and lots of bootlegs of your live shows. 

What’s amazing is your music sometimes is so sad but I can still listen to it when I’m happy and it not change my mood. It also comforts me when I’m depressed, you make me feel not so alone.

I love introducing people to you and seeing them respond well to your music. My brother has always been difficult to pass music on to (you know when they’re stubborn because they want to be the one to show you good music) but I put all your stuff on his mp3 player and one day he was walking down the road and you got to him. He suddenly completely understood your music and was compelled to listen to everything you’ve made. So many people I know just don’t get your music, which is a pity. 

I love your music, I think I will be listening to it for life. You get me through the hard times, the good times and everything in between. I’m so sorry that you had to go so early. You are missed and loved by thousands. 

Love Becca x

I apologize for having abandoned this blog for a couple months. Life got in the way.

I am back, though, and will start publishing letters posthaste.

I heard your voice today, and it really hit me again. I didn’t just listen to a few songs like I do every day out of habit. I listen to your music a lot, and I have for a couple of years now. But when I really heard you again, it took an old feeling of helplessness, worthlessness, and anxiety for me to remember every time that listening to your music made me feel like everything would be okay, and everything I’ve realized, accepted, and felt inspired to do just because of some “pretty words that didn’t last that long.”

What you did and still do means a lot. I don’t know what it meant to you, but I hope you knew how many people you’ve helped decide, or maybe, decide not to, I don’t know what happened to you in your lifetime either, but I know that your songs showed us how acceptance and honesty can turn something around and make it happy and beautiful.

Everything I have to live for is starting to come to me now. I feel like I’m home again. Thank you.

After three years I finally got my dad to listen to one of Elliott’s songs. The half-surprised, quiet smile he made when he heard it was amazing.

When I first started listening to your music, you were already gone—but I didn’t know that. I borrowed “New Moon” from the library.

I don’t know if it bothers you that people released your music after you were gone. But I love “New Moon.” I love it so much. So if you are angry with any of your friends for releasing it—please forgive them! There is so much beauty in your voice. But just as I try to wrap my mind around one lovely note, it seems to drift out of existence. And then back in again. There is this word—xibipíío. It comes from an indigenous Amazonian tribe called Pirahã. I read that there is no English translation, but it seems to mean “flickering in and out of existence.” I have never been to the Amazon. I have never met the Pirahã people. I have never met you. But when I hear your voice, I think I feel what the first Pirahã person felt when he or she used the word “xibipíío.”

It’s so strange, but I don’t know how else to describe it.  It’s so strange and I don’t know how to thank you for it.

With love and immense gratitude,
Zoë 

Elliott’s music is the one thing I can depend upon when things get bad. I don’t have the words for how good it is that no matter what happens, his songs are just a few clicks of a button away.

i saw Jeff Mangum last night at the Crystal, something i thought i would never get to do. i didn’t sob like i expected i might, i only teared up, and i didn’t even tear up precisely because of the beauty and wonder of being in the same room as Jeff Mangum. i cried because seeing him made me realize, in a way i guess i never fully had, that i am never going to get to see you (unless time travel becomes a possibility in which case someone else will have to kill Hitler because i will be otherwise occupied. forever.) 

and that just really, really sucks.

because i can imagine, at least on a very removed, theoretical level, what it would be like. i would know every song you could play and i would sing along quietly to all of them, and you would be shy and sweet and smoking cigarettes. i’ve heard enough live recordings of you that i can imagine how you would sound, and what kinds of covers you might play, and what your stage banter would be like.

but i can’t begin to imagine how it would make me feel. i know it would be the most important thing that has ever happened to me, and though i wish you were sitting on a cloud in heaven, waiting for me with your guitar, i don’t think it ever will.

and if i did have a time machine? i would find you and i would hug you and i would not let go. i would hold you and stroke your hair and your track marks, and we would get through it - i would take on all of your pain if i could, and i wouldn’t let you leave us. i would protect you. “the people you’ve been before that you don’t want around anymore, they push and shove and won’t bend to your will: i’ll keep them still.”

i think any fan of yours would want to. when i visited your wall in LA, i was overwhelmed by how much you are loved still. we love you so much, elliott. i hope you know, somewhere, somehow, how much you mean to us.

you’re not in pain anymore, and i just want to thank you for being so brave and holding on as long as you did and leaving so much of yourself behind for us. i want to thank you for carrying me through so much. thank you for everything.

i didn’t really realize til last night that i would never see you perform, somehow, and i guess last night made tangible for me in a way that nothing else has that you’re actually gone. but you’re not even, really. not to me.

but i really miss you today.

xo,

Maria

I hope that you’re happy and can finally see the love that has been your’s all along.  I wish you were here, but i think that’s selfish of me. I love you. 

Your music has always been there for me and at times I swear I can feel my heart physically ache when I remember there will never be new songs from you.  Falling asleep to your music helps silence the anxiety and frustration that builds up during the day.  Waking up to your music in the middle of the night soothes me and comforts me just like a mother’s soft lullaby does for an upset child.

I can’t thank you enough for sharing your talent with us.  I also can’t stop hating the fact that you’re gone.