I'm Not Uncomfortable Feeling Weird

Submitted by Maria Majsa, New Zealand

Falling, failing, feeling weird ... I sat down one day and wrote out all the recurring words, themes and subjects in Elliott Smith's songs and those were the f's. What I like about that list is that we've all felt one, if not all of those things at some time and that's what makes Elliott's work so important, to me anyway. If you give them the space and time, his songs will come and sit down with you. In their beautiful, private, low-key way they'll keep you company and remind you that someone else felt just like this.

You can fall in love with songs just like you can fall in love with people and because I discovered Elliott a year after he'd died, it was like falling in love and breaking up at the same time. The more I listened and the better I got to know his work, I realised how well that image summed him up – the push-pull, happy-sad, shoulder shrugging tell it like it is. I know there won't be any new songs and I'll never see him play live, but if I could say one thing to Elliott, I'd say thanks for sticking around long enough to leave us that wonderful legacy of music. I still listen every day.