The Gods of Music have nourished us decade after decade. They created their music and sung and played with such passion and love; some of their songs went deep into our being.
We listened with effortless ease. Their sounds and their words also triggered our energy until we moved. Perhaps a little of the body at first but then, at times, the whole body swayed to the music and finally to Dance. We rocked. They rocked. The Gods were loved on stage, enjoyed on Youtube, radio, MP3 players., TV, home and car sound systems.
The Gods of Music accompanied our lives. Artists, poets, movers and shakers. We made them Gods while the media blew up the Gods until they crashed. The Gods became agents for painful newspaper stories.
From December 2015 to December 2016, the lives of some of the Gods have gone. They revealed their early mortality when the nature squeezed out their last breath.
They deserved to be Gods of Music. Too many of the Gods share a terrible and hauntingly painful blind spot. They did not understand suffering and its causes. They did not understand karma and its consequences.
They ignored the some of the sensitivities of the heart, mind and body. Alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, medicinal and recreational, impacted on their whole being. A slow and tortuous diminishing of health through substance misuse – either the particular substance or several.
It is a tragedy that our Gods of Music died early as a consequence of misuse. Some confessed or boasted to the press of how much in the way of drugs/alcohol they consumed and spent.
Some boasted of the hundreds of women with whom they shared a one night stand or a little longer. The rock star moved on from their conquests but some of the women have still not forgiven themselves for succumbing to the pressure. Rock stars too have paid a price in peace of mind, trust and health for such prolific promiscuity.
The Gods of Music
Here are a few names Gods of Music, we remember between December 2015 and December 2016. We also remember the God of Boxing.
The Mortality of the Gods of Music include:
- Lemmy (frontman, of Motorhead) aged 70, Died: December 28, 2015. Cause of Death: prostate cancer, congestive heart failure, alcohol, drugs.
- David Bowie ,69, Died January 10, 2016. Liver Cancer, smoking
- Prince, 57, April 21, 2016. Fentanyl Toxicity, long use of painkillers, drugs habits.
- Leonard Cohen 82, November 7, 2016. Decades of various drugs for depression, cigarettes.
- Rick Parfitt (guitarist,Status Quo) 68, December 24, 2016. Septicaemia, Quadruple heart bypass in 1997. Years of alcohol and cocaine.
- George Michael, 53, December 25, 2016. Struggled for years with drug addiction.
The God of Boxing
Mohammad Ali. 74, June 13 2016. Parkinson’s disease for 35 years. We also remember the former World Heavyweight Champion, for the brightness of his mind, his refusal to wage war on the people of Vietnam for the US government and his commitment to his religious faith. He once calculated he had taken 29,000 punches to the head during his boxing career. Nobody protected him. He could not protect himself.
Commentators tells us the Gods lived and died the way they wanted to. I doubt it. Such human beings go through waves of suffering, despair and pain with futile attempts to try to block out the pain. Heart disease, cancers, diabetes and various levels of unhappiness until the end of life seems a living hell rather than a choice.
Some Gods of Rock were branded hell raisers. It’s true. Sometimes their wives, partners, children, parents were put through hell when they witnessed how out of control their rock star loved one had become.
The rock stars themselves would probably prefer a long, happy healthy life to all that suffering for themselves, for those close to them and sadness at their deaths for their family, friends and legions of worldwide fans.
Others blindly imagine that rock stars and substance abuse/sex addiction go together. One of the Music Gods was asked why he could not create such great songs as he did in his early 20s. He said he would if he could get back to the ‘place’ where those songs came from. Perhaps the madness of the lifestyle of too many Music Gods cut them off from such creativity and elegant reflections found in their early music before the misuse of substances set in.
Those in the industry who promote the Gods of Music and the Gods of Boxing have helped squeeze the life out these precious beings, who have given us so much. We are grateful for all we received from them.
The Gods also leave us with a message about the incredible danger of the glorification of the Self. The glorification makes an impact on the Gods who find themselves tortured with self-doubt and insecurity. There is desperate need to get away from the private self, vulnerable and fragile. The public self and the private self rarely co-exist in harmony with each other.
Thank you Mohammad Ali.
Thank you Lemmy, David Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen, Rick Parfitt and George Michael.
You left us your music. Thank you. Bless you
We wish you had not left us so early.
Great article! Overcoming internet shyness here to be changed and rearranged by these articles.
Yes, thank you great musicians for the music you left, which might echo through the universe long after planet earth has gone. I wonder if music does leave an echo? Imagine, several million years from now, a piece of space junk collides with the echo of a Leonard Cohen track.
Its really painful, the sensitive artist soul vs all the pressures.
I’ve done my fair share of romanticising wild junkie genius, in my youth of course. Now I wish my heroes had been into fizzy water and almonds. I didn’t want them to die for me. I think great works can be produced from a diet of fizzy water and almonds.
It’s lovely to read of the human side of these gods. They gave their human side abuse to be our gods of music, artistic giants, yet just small selves like us all. Suffering and dying. I’m grateful for their contribution and sad for their suffering and their loss.