Elliott Smith biographer Jamie Fisher remembers the first time she heard the late singer-songwriter’s music. She was listening to NPR when a segment came on about Jessica Lea Mayfield and Seth Avett’s 2015 album devoted to Smith’s music.
“I have a very clear memory,” says Fisher. “I was walking home from the subway, and just really being struck, and then falling into that album for a long time.
“I wasn’t really a true fan until maybe 2020,” she recalls, sinking into the music during the long days of the pandemic. “We had more time. I’d just be walking around Prospect Park, listening to his music.”
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Smith, who developed a fervent cult following for his brilliant independent albums, including the classic “Either/Or,” rocketed to a new level of fame when his songs were included in Gus Van Sant’s 1997 film “Good Will Hunting,” and Smith was invited to perform at the Oscars when his song “Miss Misery” was nominated for Best Original Song.
Following struggles with drugs, alcohol and a history of discussing suicidal thoughts, Smith died on October 21, 2003, from two stab wounds to the chest; a coroner’s report was inconclusive about whether the wounds were self-inflicted, leaving many questions unanswered.
While Smith’s early death at 34 has sometimes overshadowed his work, Fisher’s book focuses on the artist’s life and his music. “Nobody Broke Your Heart” tells Smith’s story through interviews with more than 140 friends, family, fans and fellow musicians. The book offers a clear-eyed look at Smith, who could be endearing, engaging, funny and infuriating, while also being a singularly gifted songwriter and musician who made some of the most affecting music of his or any other era.
In an interview edited for length and clarity, the Portland, Ore.-based Fisher discussed the book via Zoom while on a trip to Florida to visit her mother.
Q. You’re a staff researcher for The New York Times Magazine, a freelance writer and have written fiction and translated Chinese texts. What made you think, ‘Hey, I should write a book about Elliott Smith?’
I knew that writing a book was really hard; the proposal was really hard, almost like they’re trying to weed you out, kind of like organic chemistry in college. And so I knew it had to be something I was really passionate about and wanted to learn more about, but also something where I felt like I had something to say.
And with Elliott, I really felt like I had the tools where I could do it because I’d been working as a researcher for 10 years this year, so I knew how to research, I knew how to find people, and I was comfortable reaching out to people. For the most part, I still get nervous, of course, like everybody does. But I also knew I had something to say because I’d spent a lot of time thinking about his lyrics, and I felt like I had an understanding there. Initially, the idea of the book was a thematic exploration of his life through lyrics, and then eventually, enough people started talking to me that I felt like I had an obligation to try to make it the whole life.
Q. I was struck by the fact that you spoke to 140 or so people. Many had never spoken to a reporter about Smith before, and I wonder how you were able to reach so many people?
Um, not having a super active social life? Before work and after work, I’d be trying to find people. I mean, there’s how do you reach people in the logistical sense – and there’s how do you reach people to feel comfortable talking to you? But basically, if there was ever a road that popped up, for the most part, I would go down that road.
Q. For many of the people, it seemed like each of them had this kind of intimate bubble of friendship for a short time with him, and then struggled to maintain it afterwards. I wondered if you felt that way or what you made of all of those relationships.
Elliott was just so bad at staying in touch. There were like very few long-distance relationships that he could keep going, and it was really never personal.
One of my favorite stories was when [longtime friend] Marc Swanson came home and it was at their Brooklyn apartment where Elliott really wasn’t even living anymore, and there was a voice message from Minnie Driver like, “Elliott, hello, I’m trying to talk to you” and Mark was like, “Ohhhh, it’s everybody; he’s not answering Minnie Driver, either.” It’s not personal.
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Q. It’s interesting to see how much people were trying to help him feel comfortable.
Swanson told me they’d be at a bar and people who were just fans would want to come up to talk to him and people would just want to touch him, like they wanted to feel like he was real. There was something about him that invited closeness and invited care.
Q. His music is, to use a simple description, beautiful, but I wonder what you think has made it last and continue to attract new fans in the years since his death?
The thing I go back to again and again is the emotional honesty. But the songs aren’t literally true, in the sense that all of the details are drawn from his life, but they are emotionally true, and I think that that’s always going to resonate with people.
It comes from a real place, and that, combined with the fact that the music is genuinely beautiful, and the words don’t just sit there on a bland bedrock. It draws you in. So either the lyrics will get you, or the music will get you, but once one or the other gets you, you want to stay here. You don’t want to leave.
Q. You’re coming at his story from a remove, but I get the sense of great understanding on your part. Was there some moment or a conversation where you felt closest to understanding him and who he was?
At the beginning, there were things that made me feel like I was really getting to the sense of understanding, and then there were things that made me feel like I was veering wildly off track. It’s very difficult. Further into the book, the veering got less wild. I felt like I had more of an encompassing understanding, to the extent to which you can ever really understand someone else, especially someone who’s not here.
I talked to Beatricé, who he met in Paris and fell in love with. Just the very particular way that she looked at the world and how clear and sharp her lens was, I felt like I was looking through that lens too, through her eyes. There were these conversations like that where you just really feel everything so vividly. I was always hunting for people who held on to that vividness, even though so much time has passed.
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Q. I got the sense that some people had been holding on to their memories, and it probably felt good to talk about them.
Absolutely. Honestly, I think most of the people I talked with had not talked to someone before who was writing about Elliott. I had the sense that everything had been developing quietly in the darkroom, and then the photo was developed, and we were able to bring it out and look at it together.
I’ve been thinking a lot about why so many people felt comfortable talking to me, and I think part of this was that I approached it like this puzzle that we were solving together. I did feel like most of us were still trying to figure this out after all this time. Where the puzzle is the life, you know? The puzzle is not the death. People make the mistake of assuming the puzzle is the death.
Q. His death has been a subject of speculation. What did you come away with from talking to everyone?
I put off doing that part of the book for as long as I could because it was just so hard to think about. I can’t even imagine how hard it must be for people who really loved him, you know? I’m just someone who loved him the way a fan loves him.
I came to it knowing that there was a lot of misinformation around it. One example people always bring up is like, “Oh, you know, the suicide note can’t be real because he misspelled his own name, and it’s actually a copy that the police wrote down. The police misspelled his name.
One of the things I’ve learned from work is there’s no need to be like, OK, I’m going to turn myself into a forensic pathologist: You can actually talk to forensic pathologists and ask, “From your experience, as someone who’s done this for years, what is and what isn’t unusual?” Being a journalist, you get to talk to people who know more than you do, and they’re willing to give you their time.
I hadn’t realized going in how many people in his life were still unsure about what happened, which was part of the reason why I felt like I had to go into it at all. I felt like I’ll just lay out what is clear, and then I’ll lay out what is not clear. I felt like that was the best I could do.
Q. I don’t want us to end there and let that conversation overshadow his music. What would you like to say about the music?
There are just these wonderful stories that I heard from people about the way he would work in the studio. When he was at the height of his powers, around ‘96-’97, he would go into the studio and just go for exactly the sound he wanted, and if it wasn’t exactly the sound he wanted, he would scrap it.
His friend Aaron Day described that as this kind of essential optimism – you could always make something better – and that was really beautiful to hear. Just the fact that he was optimistic that he wasn’t making a mistake when he was letting something go is beautiful.
Q. Are there any lingering questions or things you’re still thinking about?
I do still hear stories from people. Someone came up to me at a book signing and told me that she’d sat next to him at a show, and the way he listened to music at a concert was like head down, eyes closed, just really tuned into it. I thought that was such a beautiful image. You know, it’s just one of those little details: How did he listen to music? I thought that was beautiful to think about.
The things I have questions about are not the big questions. It’s these small things, like little brushstrokes. It’s not like the painting’s missing.
One thing I think about all the time is musician Brad Truax, who remembered walking home with him one night after a show. This garbage truck rolled by, and without skipping a beat, Elliott just kind of nodded at it and said, “That’s my ride.”
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