Elliott Smith Figure 8 Shoes

[Ludivina Speed]

April 15, 1998. It was an unseasonably sultry night in Cambridge. I pushed my way cautiously through the crowd at the famed (but still gloriously tacky) Middle East, relieved to see lots of faces as nerdy, socially ill-at-ease and psychically overdrawn as my own. This murky throng may have been packed with strangers but at least some of them were people to whom I could relate, and I already felt a lot more comfortable than I had expected to feel-here, in this club, where I had come to hear the man who had rekindled my interest in the contemporary music scene.

He seemed very self effacing, especially as the individual who was the heart and soul of those amazing lyrical lines, slouching, a little voluptuous, even when shod in scuffed worn out shoes and sullen sideways looks. The music of the album that bore the strange title Either/Or-derived, I eventually learned, from a nineteenth century philosophical treatise written by Kierkegaard. And the lyrics, with their intense poetry, peppered with four letter words, that excited me the way James Joyce excited other people. I've never been a modernist, myself; was always far too sentimental and spiritually predisposed for that particular creed. With Elliott, I had found someone who gave voice to the outsider's way of looking at the world. Not looking past the sleaze, the meretriciousness, and the garbage, but looking INTO them and still finding little glimpses of beauty. Lines like "When they clean the street, I'll be the only shit that's left behind" made me realize, as I turned them round and round in my head, that here I had not just found an artist-I'd found a brother.

I walked around the club, trying to get a decent view, trying to figure out how this small man in the soft blue knit cap could fill this big room with such an incredible vibration, trying to figure out where the sense of love and mystery came from.

These notes provide some clues to answering those questions. I realized fairly soon into this project that a conventional biography would not illuminate very much of what I found so magical and compelling in Elliott's art, and in his presence. What I have done is to create a collage from interviews, song lyrics, observations from fans, and the strands of my own woolgathering thoughts while listening to Elliott. I would like to thank everyone who helped with encouragement, information, or suggestions, everyone who traded tapes with me or shared copies of articles ... most of all Charlie ... I couldn't have done it without you.

Lastly, I want to apologize for the very long delay in making this available to the public. I am not a professional writer, and had to work on this project in what I laughingly describe as my spare time. Real life often threw a mighty spanner into the works. The one advantage to waiting has been that I've managed to get a few things sorted out that might have otherwise evaded me. I hope all of you wonderful fans out there in the dark find the result worth the wait. For those of you who find it all severely underwhelming ... what can I say but: "I'm running speed trials, standing in place."

I've recently had this feeling that I needed to do an episode of this podcast about the temple. I've heard a lot of conversations about the temple of late and I guess maybe just because the temple has been a huge part of why I love this church, I reached out to my friend Elliott Smith, who I know shares my love for the temple and asked if he might be willing to join me. The interview ended up capturing what I'd hoped but we also talked about other aspects of helping others see the beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If, after this interview, you'd like to join us this Sunday, August 28, for a special Sunday discussion, I'll be joined by special guest Melinda Wheelwright Brown, author of the book "Eve and Adam," and we will talk all about the temple. The discussion will begin at 6 pm Mountain Standard Time on our Instagram All In.Podcast. Again, that's this Sunday, August 28, at 6pm Mountain Standard Time on our All In.Podcast Instagram account. It is my hope that these two things combined will help you along your own covenant path. Elliott Smith is the managing partner for TerraForm, a real estate development firm in Utah. He has lectured for the University of Utah's Masters of Real Estate Development program and has an MBA from Utah State University. He is an avid mountain biker and snow skier. He and his wife Julie are the parents of three girls.

This is All In, an LDS Living podcast, where we ask the question, what does it really mean to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Morgan Pearson, and I am so excited to have my friend Elliott Smith on the line with me today. Elliott, welcome.

Well, I feel like I should give people a little background on how this episode came to be. So I first met Elliott because my sister lived with his family when he was a bishop and she lived in their home as a missionary. And I met them when they flew from Utah to Washington, DC for my sister's wedding a few years ago. And ever since then, I have had occasional run ins with Elliott and his wife. But we don't talk a whole lot. And I've had this thing on my mind of just talking about being a member of the Church and some of the things that I hear conversations happening around me and I want to address them but I want it to be a conversation with another normal member of the church. And so Elliott was kind enough to go along with my crazy idea. And it's funny because I had been thinking about this. And then Elliott's name popped into my mind kind of out of nowhere, which I took as a sign that he's the man for the job. So Elliott, thank you for being willing to do this.

Morgan, I appreciate that introduction. And again, for the invite. So to any of your listeners out there who wanted to hear an episode with just a normal dude, I'm your guy, because that's who I am. I'm still kind of in shock that I'm on this podcast. And I've been a huge follower and fan of the podcast for a lot of years now. And I learned a lot of things from you and the different guests. And so it really is a privilege. And I yeah, I hope that I can share some things that will help other people wherever they are on their gospel journey or the journey of life. And I owe a lot of gratitude to your sister, as you mentioned that we got to know her when she was serving her mission here in the Salt Lake City area and we have three daughters and two of our daughters have decided to serve missions, largely in part because of your sister in her example, and having her and her influence in our home. So a lot of gratitude to her and your family. And it's been interesting how we've had those, quote, random meetings here. And there are different restaurants in the Salt Lake Valley. But I don't think I think that things happen randomly. I think there's a purpose behind all of it.

But I love that you mentioned that you felt like you're just a normal guy. We get messages from time to time on the show where people say I just want to hear from somebody that's a normal person. And I tend to respond and say, you know, anyone's story if told well, and if you ask people the right questions will seem extraordinary. And Elliott, I think that you are no exception. I think that you are an extraordinary person. But I love that you consider yourself a normal person and I am grateful for your willingness to do this. So to get us started, and I wanted to start out, you and I spoke beforehand and you told me something that your counselor in the bishopric told you about helping people have a good experience at church or in the temple. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Sure. Yeah. So it was actually a bishop that I served with as a counselor. This is, over a decade ago, one of my favorite people, a second father figure to me, coming up on the five year anniversary of his passing here in August, so kind of a tender time to remember him. But I've known him really my whole life for probably 30 years. But I learned a lot about him when I served with him in that bishopric. And one of the things that I learned about him is that he had a period in his life where he was away from the Church. I don't remember exactly how long but several years where he was not active in the Church. And he told me often that he regretted that time. And the reason he served 30 hours a week as a bishop, number one, he was retired at the time. And number two, he said he had to make up for that, that lost time that he was away from the Church. But he said, one of the things that was hard for him in coming back into activity in the Church was there's just a lot of fear, right on his part of feeling judged, not really feeling like he was in sync or in step with other members of the Church. And he felt afraid when he first went back. And thankfully, there were many kind, loving, accepting members of the Church that welcomed him. But he said, he felt that fear and uneasiness and not feeling like he was up to par with everybody else, because he had kind of slid back in his gospel journey. And so his mantra as we served together in the bishopric, was to create to make coming to church, a fear free worship experience. And I've always remembered that, because, you know, fear is something that keeps us from doing things that we would otherwise maybe want to do, right? Sometimes we are scared of things or nervous, we have apprehension for different things, or new events in our life or returning to old patterns. And if there's fear involved, it will keep us from progressing and jumping back in. We're talking about this in a church setting. But fear in general in life keeps us from having a full experience in life and especially in the gospel. And it doesn't take long to search the scriptures to look at how many times the Savior tells us not to be afraid, right? Perfect love casts out all fear, he does not want us to feel fear. And so I started to observe as a counselor and learn from Bishop Eyre, the ways that we can maybe help people who are returning members, when we see these wonderful individuals try to put ourselves in their shoes, right? What might they be thinking, and what I found is that many people who are returning to the church after periods of inactivity, were just terrified to show up and have a very well intentioned member in Elders Quorum or Relief Society or whatever organization, have them stand and introduce themselves. Or they had this paralyzing fear of, "oh no, if I go back, someone is going to ask me to pray or read a scripture, right?" And certain cases where that happened and then that member takes another year before they come back again, because they were terrified. And so whenever I would encounter members who were returning after a period of inactivity in the Church, I would say, "Come to church, and I'll protect you." And they would look at me a little weird and say, "What do you mean, you'll protect me?" I said, "I will make sure that I sit by you the entire time. And I'll make sure that nobody calls on you to pray out coordinate with the Elders Quorum President or Relief Society president and just have a conversation say, "Look, you're gonna have a lot of people that love you and haven't seen you in a while they're going to come up to you and it might be uncomfortable for your personal space. But they do this because they love you. And they're well intentioned. They're not trying to say anything offensive, but sometimes in our good intentions, we can come across a little bit strong, where really all people want to do is come, listen, sit quietly and feel the spirit." And so these are some of the things I learned from Bishop Eyre and watching him and how how he interacted with people, and just love them as perfectly as I've seen anybody love people.

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