Member-only story
MUSIC
Taylor Hawkins
Why This Hurts
Music is the soundtrack of our lives.
As soon as I read the headline I froze. Stella was already on the bed wagging her tail and looking at me with her big ears, head tilted to one side and feeling the energy of the room shift suddenly. I caught my breath and spoke aloud: what the fuck? I looked at Stella for answers, then turned my attention to my phone.
Lying in bed, my index finger began scrolling feverishly on Twitter in search of anyone telling me it wasn’t true. I managed to screenshot the news and text a couple of friends I knew would share my pain, still in disbelief. Upon confirmation from them and reading more tweets, I knew it was true. Taylor Hawkins, the drummer for the Foo Fighters (and so much more) — at the age of 50 — was dead.
I began reading comments on the app, learning more about Taylor the human being, as most of us knew him only as one of the best drummers on the planet, and not much else. My crash course of personal knowledge became the ingredient to the full scope of who I began to learn Taylor to be — who was — man, this is harder than I thought.
Of course, I didn’t know Taylor personally or anyone in his circle. So who was I, other than another fan in shock that someone so young who provided stellar music was suddenly gone?
