How do you cope with it? I never even thought about it until I was about 50. I remember where I was when Elvis died (a Scarborough guest house as it happens) and it didn’t really bother me. John Lennon being shot felt like a moment, as did John Bonham’s passing, but I was 19 and frankly, so much was happening and I was up to all sorts, so they were just part of the daily whirl.
But now, it seems every week for the past few years, someone we grew up with, who helped define our rock culture, passes away. I never realised so many musicians were of a similar age, so I suppose it was demographically inevitable.
These people were often cornerstones at influential points in our life. Many people, of course, don’t feel much beyond initial curiosity that the man who recorded that song on the radio has died. But to those of us concerned with the culture of rock, it feels, in a way, that a bit of ourselves has died. A brick in the house that we built so many decades ago, has been removed.
I don’t know about you, but it all used to seem more permanent than it obviously was. I never thought there’d be a day when someone like Mick Ralphs wouldn’t be with us. When I look back now, in the glory days, such people were just mid-twenties to thirty or younger. They seemed really old when we were teenagers, of course. But the mortality of rock n roll seemed to belong to people from the 50s like Eddie Cochrane. I really thought the music somehow kept people alive.
Now, I’m used to it, but it still hurts. It feels like important components of my life are going away. The music lives on, but it’s different. The Allman Brothers don’t sound the same because only Jaimoe lives on from the original band. The band of Idlewild South peer out of the sleeve like ghosts at us from 55 years ago.
Perhaps this is just immature and a failure to come to terms with growing old and death, maybe because I embraced the culture so comprehensively at 13 or younger, and it was absolutely everything to me. It certainly has hit me harder since my stroke. I do feel mortality more profoundly, don’t take life for granted, don’t waste time with petty grievances and try to appreciate even the smallest detail of living, adhering to Warren Zevon’s advice ‘Enjoy Every Sandwich.’ Is that a common thing for people who have been seriously ill?
I find myself wondering who’s next, which is stupid because there’s nothing I can do to stop it. At least I have some control over my situation, but I can’t for say, 76-year-old Alice Cooper (whose new record with the old band is superb). Can you believe Pete Townshend is 80 and The Who have been in our lives for over 60 years (how!). It can’t go on forever, and the classic rock community can’t go on forever either, even though I desperately wish it could. Do we all go through this? Does it stop as you get into your 70s, as death looms ever closer?
I suppose every generation is nostalgic about the times when they were younger, slimmer, had more hair, could party all night and get up two hours later, though I tend not to be about anything else other than music, which perhaps says more about contemporary rock, though I know there’s amazing stuff now too. But it’s not the same when it and everyone who made it was fresh, was new, and you had years ahead of you.
When thinking about a musician who has passed, I always think, they were on tour all over the world for decades and now they played a final show somewhere, and they’ve come to rest in one last place. It seems so sad that the amps will no longer ring with their music
There - I’ve ended up being a misery - I didn’t mean to. You have no choice but to accept it and be thankful for all the music, records and gigs, but, while it’s become familiar, I don’t think I can get used to this age thing, and I don’t really know if this is just a raging against the dying of the light or just failure to accept everything and everyone comes and goes. But I suppose I shall just have to.
The classic rock community can’t go on forever...
