The Difficulty of Dealing with the Passing Away of Musicians

[Vic2012]

I remember in 1989-90 I was just starting to get into Stevie Ray Vaughan. Then I'm driving and on the radio I hear he died in a plane crash. I let out a huge AWWW F***K, this can't be. It's easier to deal with when they die of natural causes, but accidents and suicides, you always feel "if only" it could have been prevented somehow. In Bowie's and Chris Squires' cases you just didn't expect it so fast. Well, in Chris' case we knew he was ill but you still want to believe he'll beat the devil. In David's case none of us knew he was ill. When I saw the RIP David Bowie thread I first thought it was a joke.

[Sturgeon's Lawyer]

I had a hard time getting over Terry Kath's death.

Kath and Keith Moon were the ones that really hit me hard. Neither was expected, both were kinds of accidental suicide, and the Who and Chicago were the first two bands that I really loved. I was lucky enough to see the Who with Moonie (once) and Chicago with Kath (three times) and those are vital memories for me.

[Facelift]

It's sad, but I can't remotely compare it to people that I actually know personally, even if I might have briefly met the person. For me it's more about benchmarks in my own life and the passage of time and the cessation of an artistic talent than actual grieving over a person, like I would a relative or friend.

I might really like a particular musician's work and might have read books about his life, but that can't in any way compare with actually knowing him.

[señormoment]

It's sad, but I can't remotely compare it to people that I actually know personally, even if I might have briefly met the person. For me it's more about benchmarks in my own life and the passage of time and the cessation of an artistic talent than actual grieving over a person, like I would a relative or friend.

I might really like a particular musician's work and might have read books about his life, but that can't in any way compare with actually knowing him.

I don't know, but maybe through music there's a kind of bond created that doesn't happen elsewhere. It's one sided, but on a deeper level.
Or, maybe not.
I'm grieving this particular death, but not by choice.

[Garden Dreamer]

Do we really grieve and mourn those that we didn't even meet or certainly didn't know personally? Isn't that for their closest family and friends? I'm not sure. Its sad when great musicians die of course. For me Chris Squire was the biggest loss, I expect it will hit me harder when I see Yes without him in a couple of months.

I don't grieve the way I do for family members and friends, but these kind of deaths surely bring me closer to the reality of my own mortality.

[Sputnik]

In thinking about this, these lyrics popped into my head: "Every time you go away, You take a piece of me with you." I think this kind of sums up my experience with death. Each creature who has touched my life and has died has taken a piece of me with them. Sometimes it's a small piece, sometimes it's a big piece. It's not that after some processing I can't come to remember the good times and smile about the memories. But there is always a kind of wistful quality to these memories, and I can't help feeling a diminishing of my personal sense of boundless possibility. In their passing, I see the passing of a piece of my time, my place, and the things that I think are special.

Everyone goes through this. I think of my mom who is 90 years old, and all the people she has seen pass on, including my dad. She has a great attitude about life, and is still active and engaged. But her world is literally dying off in front of her eyes, and as inevitable as that is, and no matter how good an attitude you have toward life, it's going to affect you.

Losing Squire and Emerson mark in some ways the passing of an era of my life. I'm not devastated, but it does bring a certain perspective on your own life. A little piece of me went with each of them.

Bill

[BobM]

in the 1970's I was a teenager, loving ELP and Yes and many other bands. Those musicians were my hero's, but they weren't teenagers then, I was. They were mature musicians in their 30's, so probably 15 years older than me and living the hard life of the road and drug culture of the time.

Now I am in my 50's and they are in their 70's. It's not surprising that they will start to die off. This realization doesn't make losing them any easier, but it does put it into perspective. I can still enjoy the memories and the great music they created. It's not like they are doing much of anything new these days anyway. The music of theirs that I love is 35-40 years old.

RIP to all the greats out there that have passed this year, and those who are still to come/go.

[Spiral]

In thinking about this, these lyrics popped into my head: "Every time you go away, You take a piece of me with you."

Fitting. For me it was "No one leaves you when you live in their heart and mind."

[jkelman]

It's sad, but I can't remotely compare it to people that I actually know personally, even if I might have briefly met the person. For me it's more about benchmarks in my own life and the passage of time and the cessation of an artistic talent than actual grieving over a person, like I would a relative or friend.

I might really like a particular musician's work and might have read books about his life, but that can't in any way compare with actually knowing him.

I'm like you, for the most part...though there have been some musicians whose deaths have hit me very hard throughout my life. Amongst them: Jimi Hendrix, Michael Brecker and Don Grolnick...all people I never had the good fortune of meeting but whose work was just that important to me. Also, in some cases, I may not have known them but I did/do know some close to them...so that does make it more personal.

But generally, my sadness is for the loss of the music, because I didn't know them to know what the personal impact would have been.

That said, suicides always hit me harder because I've experienced suicide more than once in my life, with friends, colleagues...and, once, with a family member who tried (bit, thankfully) failed, and who then got treatment and is doing much better. Knowing someone who has committed suicide, for me, makes any suicide hard to handle because I know, first hand, what it does to close family and friends, and the tragedy that, more likely than not, had the person been properly diagnosed and treated it may well have been averted.

So Emo's passing has hit me harder, but primarily for that reason, because as much as I loved ELP, their glory days were decades ago and so Emo was rarely in my thoughts after the 1980s, unless it was one of the few times a year I pulled out one of his albums to play. But suicide? That's just awful...for him to have been driven to it, and for those he left behind to cope with it. It's just too sad.

[Facelift]

...

That said, suicides always hit me harder because I've experienced suicide more than once in my life, with friends, colleagues...and, once, with a family member who tried (bit, thankfully) failed, and who then got treatment and is doing much better. Knowing someone who has committed suicide, for me, makes any suicide hard to handle because I know, first hand, what it does to close family and friends, and the tragedy that, more likely than not, had the person been properly diagnosed and treated it may well have been averted.

So Emo's passing has hit me harder, but primarily for that reason, because as much as I loved ELP, their glory days were decades ago and so Emo was rarely in my thoughts after the 1980s, unless it was one of the few times a year I pulled out one of his albums to play. But suicide? That's just awful...for him to have been driven to it, and for those he left behind to cope with it. It's just too sad.

Suicides are different, true.

I remember reading in here a couple of fairly callous comments regarding Kurt Cobain and I wonder if those same people (I don't remember who they were) feel similarly callous towards a person whom they presumably admire more as a musician?

I'm not going to pretend like I can empathize with the mental states of people driven to attempt suicide, but I feel sorry for them and, unlike some people, I can't dismiss their actions as being selfish or cowardly.

[YESHEAD777]

Since I don't know any of my musician heroes personally its not the same as the death of a loved one per se. But for those of us who have this crazy passion for music, and stellar musicians like Squire, Bowie, emerson,etc. we do take it quite personally, as if we really did know them. Especially in the case of these 3 whose music has been a vital part of my life for 40+ years, it is the beginning of the end of an era. I'm afraid that in a few years, it will be more like whose left? So while I miss them individually, and reminisce while listening to their music, I think more about the near future when most of our most beloved bands and artsts wont be around to record or tour anymore. I joke and say that I have a bucket list of artists that I want to see live before THEY die, not me. I'm so grateful that I saw Chris on the YES tour in 2014. Regretfully, I never got to see ELP or Bowie. i also got to see B.B.King shortly before he passed. We never know, so my motto is to seize the day and see as many as I can who I've never seen before.

[jkelman]

Suicides are different, true.

The simple truth is that unless someone is in a situation where they feel staying alive is more threatening to them than the other alternative, anyone who commits suicide is suffering from some kind of mood disorder. The other harsh reality is those who threaten it are less likely to actually go through with it. It's the ones who reveal nothing...sometimes even mask their depression...that are more likely to actually do it.

It's complex, but as I said, the one thing it ain't is cowardice.

Happy - well, happy isn't exactly the right word, but you know what I mean - that you don't see it that way. Not so much here on PE, but elsewhere I've seen way too much of it, and it's so callous and unaware. I'll thrown in some facts to try and convince folks otherwise, but there are some who just won't see it for what it really is, which is a shame, because the last thing that should be happening when someone dies - but especially under circumstances such as this - is to attack them, be angry at them, or judge them when none of us really know what the real deal is/was.

Thanks for your post.

[JKL2000]

I don't grieve the way I do for family members and friends, but these kind of deaths surely bring me closer to the reality of my own mortality.

I feel the same way. Of course grieving for family members is much more personal, but these musicians who, for most of us, were a generation closer to us than our parents, do remind us of our own mortality and in some ways, their departure feels more like our own departures might perhaps feel.

[SteveSly]

I remember in 1989-90 I was just starting to get into Stevie Ray Vaughan. Then I'm driving and on the radio I hear he died in a plane crash. I let out a huge AWWW F***K, this can't be. It's easier to deal with when they die of natural causes, but accidents and suicides, you always feel "if only" it could have been prevented somehow. In Bowie's and Chris Squires' cases you just didn't expect it so fast. Well, in Chris' case we knew he was ill but you still want to believe he'll beat the devil. In David's case none of us knew he was ill. When I saw the RIP David Bowie thread I first thought it was a joke.

I had a very similar experience when Freddie Mercury died. My wife and I were on vacation out west driving through the Nevada desert and it came on the radio. Queen was my favorite band in high school and it really bummed me out at the time.

[AncientChord]

I'm still grieving over John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix.

Me too..but honestly for my own selfish reasons. When Lennon died when I was 26 in 1980, it was like my childhood dreams came to an abrupt ending, knowing that the hope of a Beatles reunion would never be. I went into isolation for several days and cried my eyes out. Same with Jimi. I was 15 when this Beethoven of the guitar died.This special man changed my life completely, and I was so lucky to have seen him in concert. There was so much hope for his future in music that was dashed! And I'm saddened with the loss of recent pop and prog musicians as well, but not to the same degree. It just reminds this old progger of mortality. That's why my personal lust for great music and great live shows has never diminished. Enjoy what you can, when you can. Keith Emerson's suicide hits hard. He was such a brilliant musician and showman, that's it's difficult for me to get the gist of how depressed he was. Just like Robin Williams, it's just so sad, tragic and difficult to swallow. But just like Beethoven, their musical legacy, thankfully, with last forever.

[MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER]

I'm very saddened to hear that Bernie Worrell is in bad shape

[JKL2000]

Me too..but honestly for my own selfish reasons. When Lennon died when I was 26 in 1980, it was like my childhood dreams came to an abrupt ending, knowing that the hope of a Beatles reunion would never be. I went into isolation for several days and cried my eyes out. Same with Jimi. I was 15 when this Beethoven of the guitar died.This special man changed my life completely, and I was so lucky to have seen him in concert. There was so much hope for his future in music that was dashed! And I'm saddened with the loss of recent pop and prog musicians as well, but not to the same degree. It just reminds this old progger of mortality. That's why my personal lust for great music and great live shows has never diminished. Enjoy what you can, when you can. Keith Emerson's suicide hits hard. He was such a brilliant musician and showman, that's it's difficult for me to get the gist of how depressed he was. Just like Robin Williams, it's just so sad, tragic and difficult to swallow. But just like Beethoven, their musical legacy, thankfully, with last forever.

Freddy Mercury was the first one to really affect me. I loved his voice so much - it was very hard to accept there would be no new music from the band. Brian May's guitar was also amazing, so that too was hard to say goodbye to. BUT, has May done anything of interest since Freddy died? Maybe...

[JJ88]

Keith Emerson's death affected me in a profound way for a few days. David Bowie was another musical hero of mine who died shortly before, and as I said, it was a huge shock...but even that felt slightly easier to come to terms with because it was a case of terminal cancer, so there was little that really could have been done for him. And of course there was Chris Squire and Lemmy last year, in fairly similar circumstances.

But I couldn't get my head around the way Keith died, and did wonder whether the music itself would have been tainted for me. But thankfully, it hasn't, and I've been playing through his music this week- it's been Tarkus and Black Moon today.

John Lennon's murder is hard enough for me to get to grips with, 30-odd years on. I can't imagine what it was like at the time.

[JKL2000]

Keith Emerson's death affected me in a profound way for a few days. David Bowie was another musical hero of mine who died shortly before, and as I said, it was a huge shock...but even that felt slightly easier to come to terms with because it was a case of terminal cancer, so there was little that really could have been done for him. And of course there was Chris Squire and Lemmy last year, in fairly similar circumstances.

But I couldn't get my head around the way Keith died, and did wonder whether the music itself would have been tainted for me. But thankfully, it hasn't, and I've been playing through his music this week- it's been Tarkus and Black Moon today.

John Lennon's murder is hard enough for me to get to grips with, 30-odd years on. I can't imagine what it was like at the time.

I can't see Keith's life's work being tainted by his specific passing, but I can understand the concern.

[Tangram]

It is very different to have a death in the family or a close friend then a musician that you have never met. But there was one that shook me to the core. That was Richard Wright. I always loved his keyboards. PF is my fav group and after years of inactivity, he had reappeared with David Gilmour. When I found out, it was one of things that I will always remember where I was.

[BobM]

I belong to a writing workshop group, mostly consisting of middle aged women. When presented with a writing prompt most of them will write paragraphs about some tragedy in their past lives. It is all very personal to them, and ultimately very "soupy"and "sappy". It seems that everything affected them personally sometime in the past.

Many of them finish reading their short essay aloud and fall into a funk from remembering their tragedy. The whole class them sighs and someone pats them on the back and we move on to the next personal soap opera essay. It gets old pretty fast.

I try and celebrate the topic at hand. Reminiscing is fine, so remember the good and sweep the bad under the rug. Fine if you need to learn from a past mistake, but turning it into something positive is what grown ups do.

So lets get off this tragedy of a thread and celebrate the great music Emerson made. Can someone bring a positive spin to this or are we going to labor on the "where were you when NNN died" side of things forever?

Me, I remember listening to ELP while in college, partying and hanging out with friends and inevitably someone would put on a side of Tarkus or BSS or Trilogy and we would hang and listen to some of the finest music of the period, high on both substance and music. However, it was usually a recipe to put on Floyd afterward, sinking deeper into the psyche of the period, and the end run of the party night.