Ann 2
Alain
JennYLucky to be Dead...
October 11th 2006 08:33
Is there something to be said
for the lucky who are dead?
for the lucky who are dead?
Perhaps we could expand beyond music on this one a bit...Can you think of an artist, living or dead, whose only hope of maintaining a favorable status of fame was/is to die young?
The argument could certainly be made for Marilyn Monroe. I love this woman. She is plastered on my port walls at work, I rushed out to buy the Anniversary edition of 'Playboy' in December of last year because she was on the cover. But I would not be so enamored of her if she had lived to be elderly. She didn't have a choice but to die young...celebrity was everything to her. She was not a fantastic artist. She was a pretty girl who was looking for someone to notice her...and did we! Her death achieved its purpose because we are still in love with her today.
Who else can we definitively say had no choice but to die young? Does Elvis count in this equasion? His fame was already slipping significantly. I don't think his death can be attributed to the fame he still has today. His body of work-no fat jokes intended- legitimately deserves the ongoing fame his name has. Would you agree with that or not?
Let's get into it....Let's get past the awe of the name and speak ill of the dead, if you are so inclined. We are not going to pay homage to artists just because the music world has put them on a pedestal.
Remember, no political correctness allowed on this blog! It is a contagious and tragic disease of weakness...
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Comment by lethalpiano
Anyway, you mentioned Marilyn and Elfuss. Well, don't you think that because Marilyn was so beautiful at the time of her death that it seemed like a waste? We adored her, and therefore the mystery and awe surrounding her and her death seemed to fill a void that we wanted to hang onto because we would never see her again. Princess Diana. Steve Irwin.
Now to Elfuss. Well, that was a time in history that was very difficult for everyone. There was the civil rights thing, for a start. See, a lot of AM stations weren't playing the really good Black music. You remember Ronnie standing in front of his captive audience and waxing lyrical of a disco in a high-school hall? The good white folks were scared that the decent music was gonna corrupt thier youth. And, it did! So, they found these people like Fabian, Annette Funicello, (spelling) Frankie Avalon, and there was the start of the manufactured music. They were putting Elfuss in these horrible movies, manufacturing or rather sanitising the music to keep the "dark side" away from the kids.
They failed miserably.
Hence, when Elfuss died, we wanted to forget the really tragic stuff he was a part of to help sanitise the music image. Bit of a paradox, that, considering he took a lot of cues from the Black music. Especially after his "gyrations" which I can say with conviction, I will NEVER imitate. Let's not forget that pretty much all of his stuff was covered, magical little tunes just laying in the dust waiting for someone to pick 'em up. And, he did, and they were, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Just let me draw your attention to a few others. What would have happened to Dylan if he had passed away after the Newport Folk Festival where he went electric? What would have happened to Joni Mitchell if she had joined the Beatniks? What if Roy Orbisopn was still alive? And what about George? At least, we'd still have the Wilburys. No one could ever fathom the amount of sheer talent that was just dropped on the floor.
Not to be disrespectful to you, but I am a little ashamed of you when you say that you would not be quite so taken with Marilyn if she were still alive. So, swap her and Audrey, hey? What would happen if you were to swap Marlon for James? Now...
Comment by The Voices in my Head
The Voices in my Head
I meant that as no disrespect to aging women, I meant that as disrespect to myself and to society. Marilyn was a beautiful woman and her death was indeed a tragedy. What I am asking in this post, is would those like Marilyn have kept their celebrity status throughout their life or would they have been ridiculed and mocked as they lost the thing that kept them in the public eye? Would our society, our image conscious society, have been kind to her or would they have merely felt betrayed. She certainly wasn't taken care of by those who 'loved' her. How can you think society would have been different? Remember, we are not living in the beatnik world of the sixties. We are living in a society that turns against everyone in the public eye for the smallest infractions, real or imagined, and losing one's looks is completely unforgiveable. Look at the aging going on in Hollywood today...it isn't. Fifty year olds look like they are twenty. This technology would not have been developed nearly in time to save Marilyn from the vultures, or at least to have kept her as youthful as today's aging hollywood stars are kept.
Thank you for your post...as always, tremendously well stated.
Come back,
Voices~
Comment by lethalpiano
The short answer is, we will never know. I have a longer answer, though...finally, someone to stimulate my ravings! Oh, and I wasn't trying to be nasty to you in any way.
Please forgive my shortcomings as a writer. I start sounding like this after an exeedingly long period without sex.
Comment by The Voices in my Head
The Voices in my Head
No disrespect taken towards me except the disrespect I heap onto myself...
As for the lack of sex, I have been told, on good authority, that the best sex there is, is that of the stimulated mind...Mind Orgasms, he called them. Brilliant man, he is.
Thank you, again!
Come back,
Voices~
Comment by lethalpiano
Comment by tinkster
Comment by The Voices in my Head
The Voices in my Head
Would you agree that the brilliant who have 'burned out rather than to fade away' made that choice consciously or subconsciously? What about the beautiful but less brilliant?
Come back,
Voices~
Comment by tinkster
will be missed and mourned when he goes, but it's just not as romantic should I say, compared
dying young and maybe tragically. I am not sure about the beautiful. Marilyn was beautiful, and I
can't say I really think she was brilliant.
Comment by The Voices in my Head
The Voices in my Head
No one can honestly say they found Marilyn to be a brilliant actor. If they do, they are lying. We fell in love with her smoldering sexuality...the eyes, skin, face, lips and body that made even housewives do a double take and then drink for the rest of the afternoon.
Our love affair with Marilyn, though enduring, is owed to the fact that she died young, still beautiful and still possessed fragility, a quality that was lost somewhere along the way of the evolutionary process of today's woman.
We never watched the hair become more brassy with the comingling of platinum hair dye over grey hair, the perfect breasts sag, the minute waistline expand. She died perfect and perfectly. Tragically. She will be forever imbedded in our minds as the young age she was at her death, even as we are old and dying ourselves.
Come back,
Voices~
Comment by Always Eighteen
Always Eighteen
Although I'm not sure they killed themselves on purpose.
Also, Jeff Buckley and Tupac Shakur.
I always had this theory that if Eminem died young, with only 1 or 2 albums released, he'd have died with a lot more respect and legend.
Comment by The Voices in my Head
The Voices in my Head
So glad to see someone else has a self-named blog...
Interesting point about Eminem...and here is another one. I happen to think that although I despise most of his lyrics, as a woman, they are very honest...a trait I respect in an artist. Do you think Eminem is truly talented? Just curious...
Voices~