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Elliott Smith

metaphours

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His lyrics shout INFJ to me, but I'm not sure. Any thoughts?
 

ZPowers

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I'd agree 100% on INF. He kind of strikes me as P, though. He's fairly insecure and unaggressive in tone, and often tends towards what seems to me to be a drifter's attitude. Take charge/make definitive plans seems less his style than uncertainty and self-doubt.
 
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Phantonym

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I've always gotten an INFP vibe from him, for what it's worth.
 

metaphours

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Hmm, yeah I was thinking INFP as well. I can relate a lot to his lyrics. Perhaps I should have put 'INFx'.
 

gigi_xo

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who says he's an I?

E's can be plenty sad/lonely
 

ZPowers

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It's true, E's have as large an emotional range as anyone. But I'd lean I just because he moved very quickly from the band Heatmiser to a solo career (citing that he didn't have any disagreements with the band, who were still his friends, and wanted to leave in a way that wouldn't offend them), he didn't give a lot of interviews and his initial refusal to play "Miss Misery" at the Academy Awards to avoid over-exposure. There's accounts of his friends claiming he was generally very poor with relationships and keeping in touch and became so focused on his music he'd forget to do things like shower. His songs also seem to almost all expressions of internal emotion rather than reflections of the outside world or other's feelings/relationships. Seems Introvert to me.
 

Blackout

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after listening to xo for about 2 straight weeks and watching a couple of interviews, i'm going isfp.

like sam beam of iron and wine, or even neil young, elliott smith is all about the Fi articulation thru extremely LUSH sound. his vocals (double-tracked and over-dubbed) provide the main thrust of his music, along with really simple clean melodies. i get Se more than Ne. Ne will come up with an idea that feels different, that relates or articulates an identity by being from a different cultural space, a weird experiment that sticks. this is back-to-basics Fi via Se. the lyrics themselves are scattered places and pictures with a bit of tertiary Ni holding them together but not much.

i also think he's more 9w8 than 4w5. he has that 8 undertone of explosive anger, far below the exremely placid soft shy demeanor of 9ness. he wants to be numb, or warm.

sooooooo much second person in the lyrics.

this makes me re-think justin vernon of bon iver.

Yeah that's the thing, it's like he paints beautiful picture with his lyrics, but they don't all too often become theoretical, or dealing with really big picture abstract, and he seemed fairly down to earth.


I think people forget about, but N is supposed mean being very conceptual and abstract, and...I feel like, people go by stereotypes too much. His music is about life experiences, and sensory observations and generally he seems to tell stories with his lyrics about emotional and life experiences. But he never goes really into any broader reasoning as to why, yet he is always painting beautiful pictures. Don't get me wrong, he did make points obviously, but just in a different way...? it sort of seemed.

Actually no, I just watched an interview, and it's hard to say.

I think see him being either.

I've known some ISFP's that speak like him though, so I guess I am just bad at typing people. I think I lean towards ISFP...
 

Neurasthenia

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Reviving an old thread...

I believe Elliott was an ISFP with developed tertiary Ni. He had his intellectual pursuits, read a lot, according to friends.

But he seemed more Se than Ne. He played basketball for fun, his music showed a particularly dexterous and kinesthetically-in-touch quality, whereas INFP musicians tend to create music more chaotically, as others have mentioned.

Jim Hendrix seems to have been an ISFP, and I see in them a similar Fi dreaminess, individualism, emotional depth, and an outcast/outlier quality as well. And they certainly show a similar Se connection with their instrument and the rhythm, melody, and harmony of music. They both are like machines in their virtuosity -- watching them perform live really conveys this best. Although, Elliott often, especially in his later years, would mess up his songs and sometimes give up on them or struggle through them, seemingly addled with mental health issues -- addiction and perhaps C-PTSD. So, you can see his virtuosity shine and you can also see the struggles he had in the way he sometimes performed on-stage.

All that said, I see Elliott as surely Fi-dom and almost as surely Se-aux. I believe his interest (according to friends) in complex reading subjects was perhaps due to his developed tertiary Ni.

Thanks for reading, and I'm curious what y'all think.
 
Last edited:

MaxMad244

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Jan 1, 2022
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254
MBTI Type
INTJ
His lyrics shout INFJ to me, but I'm not sure. Any thoughts?
I would have said that but knowing that Carl Jung and my dad are both INFJ's, I think INFJ's are a lot more worldy than people give them credtit for due to the J aspect of their personality. Elliot has the softness of P (not a bad thing but he doesn't sound like a person who would talk a lot about ought's and shoulds).

So I vote no. I think he is a P for sure.
 
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