Elegy 2016

So, back in December 2015, it seemed like a lot of famous people were dying.  It started with Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots and kept going with Natalie Cole and then Lemmy Kilmister.  As 2016 started, the tidal wave of celebrity deaths didn’t stop.  The world came to a complete stand still when David Bowie passed away the week after his last studio album, Blackstar, was finally released.  I was never the biggest Bowie fan, but his death gave me pause to finally dig into his library of work.  I was sorry that I didn’t get into his work sooner for I found a few pieces that I really loved and I think Blackstar was a fitting bookend to his career.  He might have been a famous musician, but he will always be Jareth the Goblin King to me.

As the death toll continued to mount, I decided to take an idea from an app that an acquaintance of mine uses that tracks celebrity deaths and create a photo album on Facebook with photos of all that have died in 2016.  So why are the first three photos of people that died in 2015?  Well…

Obviously Scott Weiland and Stone Temple Pilots were an influence on me growing up.  I very much enjoyed Core and Purple growing up and still listen to them in their entirety from time to time to this day.  They kinda lost me around Tiny Music Songs… just because its was very different from their previous two albums, but I eventually grew to like it.

As for Natalie Cole, I was never a fan of hers, but if you’ve heard her sing ‘Unforgettable’ with her father, how could you forget her?  I was never really a fan of Lemmy Kilmister or Motörhead either, but I did dig his beard style.  My current beard shape was inspired by his look.

I was never a fan of Natalie or Lemmy, but I believe that they should be included in my album, just like all the others in my album.  I have to give credit where it’s due after all.  They didn’t mean much to me, but they were everything to someone.  These people, these artists, musicians, actors, actresses, they all gave something of themselves to help the rest of us figure out who we are.  Today’s celebrity death – Prince – was definitely unexpected and one that I wasn’t prepared for.  I’ve been a fan of his since I was a kid.  Red Corvette, Kiss, 1999…the list goes on and on.  Today is definitely a day for Purple Rain to fall on us all.

I really hate that the celebrity deaths keep happening, but it’s a sobering reminder that death can come for us at any time at any age.  Some of the people in my album were the picture of health when they died, others kept their illnesses a secret until the end.  I don’t really remember where I was going with this post as I’ve been chipping away at it over the course of my shift at work here and there.  Maybe later on down the line I can come back to the subject with a bit more cohesion and clarity.