I was on my way to COM to study for a test when the Boston Metro man forced into my gloved hands the latest copy of the paper that seeks to demote every other Boston paper’s circulation rating. Instead of studying, I perused recent events, and I came across the name of singer-songwriter Elliott Smith. The obituary was nestled at the end of the paper, and my brain was screaming because it was the one headline that mattered to me in the whole day’s issue, and I’d wasted a good half-hour to get to it. All intentions of focusing on my exam — I write this in lieu of last-minute cramming — have disappeared as I am overcome by an intense sense of disappointment. It comes upon hearing that someone I admire so much became a victim of his own discontent with life through an apparent suicide at the young age of 34.

A myriad of fans must be feeling the shock before recognizing the foreshadowing that has come about with Smith’s death. He was a man in his prime: successful, talented and even had a live-in girlfriend. Smith was admired by rock and folk fans alike and boasted an Oscar nomination for his 1997 single “Miss Misery,” featured in “Good Will Hunting.” Why would such a person want to end his life?

What does it say for the rest of us when even the most amazing people have problems and difficulty dealing with them? The lyrics of Smith’s songs feature glum themes and the general disillusionment with the contemporary world. I was lucky enough to see Smith for the first [and now it becomes painfully aware, it was also the last] time at the Field Day Fest concert this summer, when fans huddled around a small stage, spending hours in the New Jersey rain to have a glimpse of Smith and sing along to his moving compositions. He spoke with a monotone voice and was joking that the audience wanted to hear a happy tune, and made it clear that there were none. He was not a happy guy.

In his song “Ballad of Big Nothing,” he writes, “said you can do what you want to whenever you want to, you can do what you want to there’s no one to stop you” sounding a Janice Joplin-esque theory of freedom, being there’s nothing left to lose, but he was wrong: in a self-inflicted death, the absolute freedom he chose became the loss of his many admirers. And after spending all of Tuesday with his songs filling my room, consoling me on my recent heartbreaks and frustrations, it became my irreparable loss as well.

The beauty of work such as Smith’s is that people can unite through listening to his music and share our bad days, hopeful affairs and natural sense of melancholy through the lyrics and subtly haunting melodies. I do not want to believe that those of us whom can relate to his mode of thinking are destined to give up on the world or that the depressed have to surrender. Instead, I hope his death serves as a reminder that as long as people think the same and produce influential art, the world is still a beautiful place worth living in.

In the words from my favorite Smith song, “Say Yes” maybe there is hope, as long as it comes in time, and we can learn from this tragedy: ‘But now I feel changed around, and instead falling down, I’m standing up the morning after.’

Matuya Brand CAS ’04