June has hardly started, but this year has already been harsh with musicians! Just check out this list, they all died this year: Etta James, Whitney Houston, Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn (The Blues Brothers), Donna Summer, Robin Gibb (The Bee Gees), Don Cornelius, Adam Yauch (The Beastie Boys), Tommy Marth (The Killers), Dick Clark, Levon Helm (The Band), Chuck Brown (Godfather of Go-Go), Earl Scruggs, Greg Ham (Men at Work), Davy Jones (The Monkees), Doc Watson, Chris Ethridge (Flying Burrito Brothers), Jim Marshall (guitar amp), Jimmy Ellis (the Trammps), Ronnie Montrose (guitarist), Bob Weston (Fleetwood Mac),… and I am probably forgetting a few.
This, and a few recent deaths around me, made me think about death. I realize that I am a naturalist, for me, death is an integral part of life. I am not one of these people who see death as the opposite of life, no, rather death is a continuity of life, and by this I don't mean there is life after death, not at all! The only life after death we have is on this earth, as we still live through what we have left here, but beside this, no, nothing else.
Life would not make sense without death, I learnt this from biologists and evolutionists – meaning that species live and evolve because precisely they are mortal – and from the Flaming Lips: they are always talking about death and seem to be in peace with the idea, why do they go all confetti-giant-balloons when singing ‘Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die’? Because they also sing ‘But life without death is just impossible’… They know it, but still, how can we possibly find comfort in this? People still revolt against the idea of death.
When we are alive, we have many choices, or probably we just believe we have them, but when it comes to death, there is none, everyone dies and death is the ultimate justice as it treats everyone equal… Life on the other hand doesn't, so If we have to revolt, it is not against death which treats everyone the same way, but against life, so unfair and perfidious.
Death, the ultimate part of life, is unavoidable and necessary, but before dying we should have only one goal driven by this will to survive. Whatever this life gives you, this is your only chance, your only big coup d’éclat in the universe,… all the musicians who died this year had certainly theirs. There will never be another occasion to be yourselves, as in death we vanish in nothingness, all equal.