"As I’ve worked on my biography of Smith, his friends and family have told me about a lanky teen-age boy who used to take his little sister on picnics and taught her what apartheid means; an anxious college student who couldn’t sleep one night until he had listened to Elvis Costello’s 'Trust' all the way through; a musician who would catch your eye in the studio and then pretend to walk downstairs until the top of his head vanished under the recording-booth window."
The Lingering Beauty of Elliott Smith
Twenty years after his death, the singer-songwriter still isn’t particularly well known, or well understood, but he is terribly loved.
newyorker.com