Creativity Quote by Elliott Smith

Elliott Smith is puncturing the most overused myth in pop culture: that there’s a single, coherent “general public” waiting out there like a jury. The line works because it sounds casual, even shruggy, while smuggling in a serious refusal to perform for an imaginary crowd. “I try not to think about” isn’t anti-fan so much as anti-abstraction. He’s not rejecting listeners; he’s rejecting the marketing category that turns listeners into a blob you’re supposed to anticipate, flatter, and fear.

The kicker is the double move: he admits ignorance (“I have no idea”), then widens it into a quiet indictment (“and I don’t think anybody does”). That last clause is doing the real work. It undercuts gatekeepers and pundits who talk about “what people want” as if they have access to some mass mind. Smith’s tone is dry, almost deadpan, but the subtext is protective: if you let the “general public” into the room while you’re writing, you start composing defenses instead of songs.

Context matters because Smith’s career sat at the fault line between intimate songwriting and sudden visibility (especially post-Good Will Hunting). For an artist whose appeal rests on specificity - murmured confessionals, private angles, unshowy melody - the idea of optimizing for broad appeal would be aesthetic self-harm. The quote is less a pose of purity than a practical creative strategy: keep the audience human-sized, or risk turning art into customer service.