There's a thread blazing over on Hoffman "Do Rockers wear their Debauchery and drug abuse as a badge of honor" and one tangent in that thread was about how some musicians credited their best work to drug use. I have read this trope many times over the years but I wonder if something else isn't in play: youth.
We've seen it in our favorite musical acts, film directors, authors, etc. The early stuff is better, burns hotter. An artist bursts onto the scene, full of new ideas and a passion that is tangible. They find their groove, release a seminal series of albums, paintings, or films. Then it fades. Often, as they say about regarding rock or 50s jazz, "the drugs stopped working". Or the heat of youth is replaced by the burdens and distractions of maturity. I know there's many cases where the drugs did take a toll on creativity. There are many artists in my collection that just lost the muse after a while.
But is this always the case. I've got that red Dylan box from several years ago and the third disc, full of miserable old bastard songs, is the one I return to the most. In a way, it seems to be the most self-aware of his work. But I can think of few other examples where there was a return to form or at least a new perspective on life that was as revealing as their early work. Maybe Bowie's last album? Richard Thompson still seems sharp, though not equal to that peak of Mock Tudor. Are there any other examples of where time didn't take its terrible toll?
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