Elliott Smith - Early Life

Early Life

Steven Paul Smith was born at the Clarkson Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, the only child to Gary Smith, a student at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and Bunny Kay Berryman, an elementary school music teacher. His parents divorced when he was six months old, and Smith moved with his mother to Duncanville, Texas. Much later in his life, Smith got a tattoo of a map of Texas on his upper arm and said, "I didn't get it because I like Texas, kind of the opposite. But I won't forget about it, although I'm tempted to because I don't like it there."

Smith endured a difficult childhood and a troubled relationship with his stepfather Charlie Welch. Later in life, Smith would come to believe that he had been sexually abused by Welch at a young age. He reflected the impact of this part of his life in the lyrics of "Some Song": "Charlie beat you up week after week, and when you grow up you're going to be a freak." The name "Charlie" also appeared in the lyrics for "Flowers for Charlie" and "No Confidence Man". The family was a part of the Community of Christ through much of Smith's childhood, but eventually began attending services at a local Methodist Church. Smith felt that going to church did little for him, except make him "really scared of Hell". In a 2001 interview, he stated, "I don't necessarily buy into any officially structured version of spirituality. But I have my own version of it".

At the age of nine, Smith began playing the piano, and at 10 began learning guitar on a small acoustic guitar bought for him by his father. At this age he also composed an original piano piece, "Fantasy", which won him a prize at an arts festival. Many of the people on his mother's side of the family were non-professional musicians; his grandfather was a Dixieland drummer and his grandmother sang in a glee club.

At 14, Smith moved from Texas to Portland, Oregon, to live with his father, who was then working as a psychiatrist, along with his step-mother and two half sisters. It was around this time that Smith first began using drugs, including alcohol, with friends as well as experimenting with recording for the first time, borrowing a four-track recorder. During high school, Smith played clarinet in the school band and also played guitar, piano and sang in the bands Stranger Than Fiction and A Murder of Crows, billed as either Steven Smith or "Johnny Panic". He graduated from Lincoln High School as a National Merit Scholar.

After graduation, Smith began calling himself "Elliott", saying that he thought "Steve" sounded too much like a "jock" name, and that "Steven" sounded "too bookish". According to friends, he had also used the pseudonym "Elliott Stillwater-Rotter" during his time in the band Murder of Crows. Biographer S. R. Shutt speculates that it was either inspired by Elliott Avenue, a street that Smith had lived on in Portland, or that it was suggested by his then-girlfriend. A junior high acquaintance of Smith speculates that it was so as not to be confused with Steve Smith, the drummer of Journey.