Tattoo Story: Elliott Smith's XO

So far, I have ten tattoo's. This is the story of my tenth.

On Valentine's Day this year, having recently just celebrated my 23rd Birthday, I used some of my Birthday money to pay for my next tattoo. Having at least twenty future tattoo's in mind, when making a decision on which one to get next it all more or less boils down to what I'm most in the mood for. At the time, I decided to get my long awaited brainchild idea of an Elliott Smith tattoo. The idea was born like this:

There is a book by Autumn de Wilde, filled with gorgeous pictures of Elliott Smith, the Figure 8 Wall in Sunset Boulevard, and hauntingly beautiful shots of Elliott and his surroundings. The front cover of the book is of a large red balloon obscuring Elliott Smith's entire face. At some point about three years ago, this cover inspired me to write a piece on Elliott(with a heavy extreme dose of ripoff inspiration based around Sonic Youth's song, "Tunic,")called, "Red Balloon."

I first discovered Elliott Smith's music a year before he died. It's difficult for me, as it so often is with all of my other favorite musicians, to explain why his music effected me the way it did, and has continued to do so since. What I've always come to love about his sound is that there was always this comfort in the sadness he presented in his voice. The harmony in his voice was but the mere hypnotic pull he had in each song, that once pulled in there was this landscape of sad beauty. Sometimes you couldn't tell when it was sad and when it was beautiful. But by the end of the album it had struck a chord that in my heart would always remember it's power.

No other album of Elliott Smith's made me feel this way more than, XO. Every song carried melodic chords, an angel range of vocal harmony, and every bit of comforting sadness that was mentioned earlier. I never knew there could be such a thing until I heard Elliott sing.

2012 marked the ten year anniversary since I discovered Elliott Smith. While this was unbeknownst to me at the time of my ink decision, my idea for my Elliott Smith tattoo would finally be fleshed out nonetheless. Based on the inspiration Autumn de Wilde gave me with the image of the Red Balloon, and XO being as important of an album for me today as it was ten years ago, I created an idea for an image of a red balloon whose string would spell XO. I decided it would be placed atop my chest just below the neck. Where it would constantly be in flight, above my heart, and within my voice.