Ain't nothing quite as sad as watching your heroes die.
Broken grammar aside, Waylon Jennings had it right. The invincible superheroes of our childhood weren't invincible after all, a lesson we seem to learn with increasing frequency these days. In my case, and in the case of the thousands of other people whose lives are consumed by music, many of my heroes met their demise much earlier than they should have.
Our latest reminder came this morning.
The internet homepage on my work computer is MSN.com, so I see the morning headlines before I punch in for the day. I usually scan the headlines before I start my work, and this morning, I saw a link that said, "Grunge rocker dies". Naturally, this piqued my interest, so I hovered over the link to see the full headline.
"Representative - Chris Cornell has died at age 52"
Gut punch.
Cornell, who fronted Seattle powerhouse Soundgarden and rock supergroup Audioslave, was blessed with the one of the most powerful and underappreciated voices in music. Listen to his acoustic cover of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean", his backing vocals on Temple of the Dog's "Hunger Strike", his lead on Soundgarden's "The Day I Tried To Live" or Audioslave's "Be Yourself" - they're incredible. Few musicians who mourn Cornell's passing today were in reaching distance of his immense vocal talents.
Cornell's passing made Soundgarden the third of the "Big Four" Seattle bands to lose their lead singer to an untimely death. Sadly, at 52, Cornell was the oldest of the three to pass, and by a wide margin. Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, who died in April 1994, was only 27. Layne Staley of Alice in Chains, who died eight years to the day after Cobain, was 34.
I was nine when Cobain died. My age, coupled with my grandmother's death two months later, left me with no memory of Cobain's death. My grief was elsewhere, and my awareness of the music world was largely non-existent at that age.
Staley's death, however, was completely different. I vividly remember where I was when I learned of Staley's passing: Fifth hour drafting class with Mr. McCarthy, junior year of high school. It was one of the days my friends and I had control of the radio, so the local rock station was on. The DJ announced Staley's death, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Staley has been my favorite vocalist for years and years, and his loss was the first musician's death to really affect me emotionally.
For people like me, and the people who consume and process music like I do, losing one of your favorite musicians is like losing a friend. That might sound ridiculous, because these musicians have real family and real friends who are suffering an immense loss. Though fans like me never have the chance to really know these men and women, it nevertheless leaves an irreplaceable hole in our lives. Staley never met me, but he was my friend. He was there for me more times than he could ever know, and has been since his passing in 2002.
In truth, I still miss him to this day. One of the best moments in my long history of attending concerts was having the privilege of seeing Alice in Chains play "Nutshell" - my favorite song of all-time and a "Layne song" if there ever was one. My thoughts went to Staley, and the hundreds and hundreds of times I'd listened to that song. I had goosebumps that night.
When I was skimming Facebook at lunchtime, I came across a post from the official account of the band Kyng. (If you haven't heard them, or heard of them, go YouTube them. Like, right now. This post isn't going anywhere.) The post, which isn't signed, was likely written by lead singer Eddie Veliz, who talks about the impact Cornell had on him as a songwriter, musician and vocalist. The hurt in Veliz's words reminded me of how I felt when Staley died 15 years ago. I wanted to reach through the computer and give Veliz a hug, because that's all I wanted when I felt those feelings.
I've been told, on more occasions than I can remember, that I take music too seriously. The people who say that don't realize music saved my life, got me through many of my hardest moments, and was always my friend when I felt like I didn't have any. I'm certainly not the only person who can say that and, unfortunately, I'm not famous enough to pay the favor forward. Watching those capable of doing so either a) pass away, or b) struggle through the loss of their own heroes, is a stark reminder that those heroes really are human beings, and not invincible forces of nature.
While the grief we feel as fans pales in comparison to the grief of family and friends, it is nonetheless still grief. As The Ringer's Rob Harvilla said in his piece eulogizing Cornell, "Listening to those ... songs today is not a very pleasant experience. It hurts. But it's also the only thing that helps."
Harvilla is spot-on. The moment I read of Cornell's passing, I threw my earbuds in and played the aforementioned "Billie Jean" cover. I spent the day listening to Cornell's work in Audioslave, Soundgarden and Temple of the Dog, just as I listened to "Freedom '90" last Christmas, "Purple Rain" last April, and "Heroes" last January.
It hurts to play these songs on the day we learn of our fallen heroes' passing, but it's a reminder that a piece of them will always be with us.
That makes these tough days hurt a little less.
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