Don’t cry for Bowie. Create for yourself.
It’s been a rough start to January for lots of pop culture lovers. In the first three weeks, Lemmy Kilmister, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, and Glenn Frey were the most prominent of pop-culture figures to die. There were lots of others — the drummer for Mott the Hoople, R&B singer Otis Clay, a member of the Tower of Power horn section — but these four got huge amounts of attention.
What’s this say about us? A few things, I think.
Number one: get ready.
One meme that’s going around is a list of rock and rollers in their sixties, seventies, or eighties (Chuck Berry is 90 this year). It’s easy to look forward five years and think that many of these folks are not going to be here any more (Why Billy Squier is on this list and Jimmy Page, Andy Summers, Ann Wilson, or Ron Wood is not is another question to be addressed elsewhere.)
But second, and more important, there’s something that these three deaths should be telling you about yourself (and about all of us, collectively). Part of you is not mourning them; you’re mourning yourself.
Musicians aren’t like other creators; music isn’t like other bits of culture. Particularly for those of us who grew up when every mall had a record store and music came on vinyl with great jackets, the songs and albums and the artists are entwined deep in our hearts.
So when they die, we hurt. And while some of that pain is for them, most of it — let’s be honest —is for us. We won’t get that chance to see them again (or ever); there won’t be that moment when we hear a new song or a new album; every time we hear their music on a car radio or our stereo at home will be a reminder that they’re gone, and that we’ll be too at some point.
Because that’s the nub of things. The idols of our youth, the mostly men who were the embodiment of youthful creativity and indulgence, are now old men. And you know what that means? We’re old too. We, too, will die. And if you haven’t already, you’ll experience the deaths of parents, siblings, friends, colleagues, providing less cultural impact but equal psychological impact.
We live part of our lives thinking we’re going to go on forever. Then, the world teaches us that we’re wrong, some early; some later on. So if there’s something that Bowie and Frey and Alan Rickman and whoever else dies can teach us, it’s this: you can only make things while you’re alive.
I spent many years not doing some of the creative work I could have been doing because my own brain kept me holding back. I’ve been coming to a point of realization: if I don’t make stuff and put it out there, I’m not SAVING anyone from crap; if it’s crap it will sink beneath the waves without a trace. I’m denying myself the opportunity to make something good, and I’m denying others the chance of reading, listening, experiencing something good. That’s dumb.
Bowie got panned lots of times. There are articles and movie quotes and legions of people who say they HATE the Eagles. That hasn’t stopped an outpouring of grief at the recent deaths.
So don’t write that story next year, write it now. Don’t decide you’ll learn piano sometime, find the time. You only get to do it while you’re alive, and if you keep it all inside, it will be buried with you. Make. Share. Once it’s out of your head and onto a piece of paper or on Soundcloud, it’s up to the world to judge its worth. And who knows: you may give someone a moment. My friends Mark and Andrea came up with the term a “spingle” — the feeling you get when something like a song or a movie or a speech or a phrase gets you right where you live and sends the tingles up and down your spine.
You’ve had spingles. I’ve had them. From time to time, I’ve been able to give them to other people. Maybe you have too. Don’t let your spingles disappear. Pass them on.
