Rock and roll is an evil, bitter woman.

[apolla]

Rock and roll is a bitch. She selects the choicest specimens and devours them as if she were a leather-clad praying mantis or black widow spider. She must be very hate-filled to destroy those people who loved her the most. Either that or she's just a woman.

Rock and roll is the reason Jim Morrison, Philip Lynott and John Lennon are dead. She picked them out of the throng of worshippers at her temple, and who could blame her? These perfect specimens of rock manhood- I'd choose them in a heartbeat, especially if the other option is Dave Lee Roth or Sting.

I'll ditch the Rock-as-devouring-she demon metaphor, but there is some truth to it. It was the best and brightest who were so easily destroyed by rock. Peter Gabriel, after all, is still going strong. Is it something in the genetic makeup of golden gods? Something that creates beauty with one hand and takes it away with the other? Is it the media, with their unreasonable expectations and worse demands? Perhaps it's what Achilles realised thousands of years ago- that a glorious life can never be a long one. But why? What is it that killed Achilles and my latter-day Dionysus?

It has been said that rock people turn to drugs and other insanities because they're trying to recreate the feeling of being on stage, loved by tens of thousands of people in one go. I presume it's the feeling described thusly by Robert Plant: "Some nights I look out and just want to fuck the entire front row."

That said, plenty of people (including Percy Himself) have dealt with that insane level of adulation without dying. Phil Bastard Collins somehow managed to fill entire stadia the world over. Take That, the Spice Girls, fucking Westlife. Hell, Roger Daltrey has spent 40 years with the Who had has only ever had 'his moments'. What is it that separates Roger from Moon? Aside of course, from six feet of topsoil. What indefinable thing allowed Roger to live but killed Keith? And for the LOVE OF GOD, would someone please explain to me what it is that has made Keith the Chemical Laboratory Richards the exception to all the rules?

Fifty years ago, when a song called 'That's All Right Mama' was recorded by a truck driver, the arbiters of taste, culture and morality said that this horrid new music was going to destroy the entire world. It didn't quite happen like that, but rock and roll is far more destructive than most people think. If you let it into your heart, completely and without reservation, it will eat away at you sooner or later.

It's been eating away at me for many years- perhaps since something forever unattainable (Morrison alive and in rehab) was shown to me in a dream and it broke my heart. Perhaps since the murder of John Lennon stopped being a moment in history for me and became a personal tragedy. Maybe it's even been happening since one cold November morning many years ago and I was told that my lurex-clad hero Mercury was dead.

Rock and roll has walked hand in hand with death since the beginning and so it has been destroying me since the beginning. Jim and John were lost to me before I ever had a chance, and so I have been fading away since they day I was born. If I was offered the opportunity to go back in time, I would do it. If I could even just try to save my beloved rock boys, I would do it. If it meant staying in the past, never to see my friends or family ever again, if it meant living through the eighties again, if it meant waiting thirty years for Harry Potter and the internet, I would do it in a heartbeat and where do I sign? I don't know how I could save Jim- I really don't- although hitting him in the head and locking him in a padded celll to cold turkey it all out of his system before taking him away from everything until he was stronger mentally/emotionally seems to be an idea. I'd go to the recording studio and beg John to wait awhile being going home one December evening. I'd beat Mark Chapman in the head and call the police on him before he had a chance to fire a shot. I'd get to Philip Lynott before he could even hear the word heroin. I wouldn't hesitate before dropping to my knees to beg them- although them being groupie-literate rock stars, I'm sure they'd misconstrue the gesture.

You see, I was thinking about this earlier and yesterday, and I am frankly terrified at the ease with which I did. Hardly a hint of 'it's silly, but I'll see the idea through to the end' thoughts. My only concern was that it won't happen. The archangel Gabriel has better things to do, and I'm not sure God would approve of time travel, particularly when it's to change things like this. I haven't been able to get the idea out of my head, but more worrying than that is that I don't mind. My brain is not objecting, nor trying to point out that it's insane, and that's what worries me most of all. If rock is a disease, Im' in the inoperable terminal stage and I need to check myself into Bedlam Hospital, stat.

Surely I can't live like this?

Walking through Kings Cross this afternoon, it all felt very unreal. I'm not unused to feeling detatched from the world to this degree- feeling that life is a dream I'm waiting for wake up from. But today I was disturbed to realise that to me, my dream of going back thiry years felt more real, more lifelike than walking through that hotbed of humanity.

This clearly is not right and I am forced to realise that I might realy have to do something. Either actually go back in time and live that life, or give up rock and roll. Steven Tyler has said that rock and roll is the greatest drug there is (and he should know) so perhaps it is time for me to go voluntary cold turkey before I end up involuntarily insane. Not forever (I couldn't do that any more than I could breathe underwater) but for a while. Time to give it up, I suppose. Give it up until I can listen to John without getting too upset, give it up until I can hear Jim without imagining a sad, lonely man in Paris. Give it up until I can accept it at face value again. I am unaccustomed to silence- I hope Dino is up to the mammoth task ahead of us.

I can't believe I've arrived at this point in my live. I wish I was being a drama queen, but I'm really not. I wish I was exaggerating, but I'm not. Instead, I'm falling apart and dear God in heaven, help me.

Comments

[windtear.livejournal.com]

::hugs::

[(Anonymous)]

I like Sting.
Don't be sad! At least the world remembered Achilles' name, which is what he wanted (or in the Brad Pitt version it is!) and also all those others you so admire and enjoy. Lx

[apolla.livejournal.com]

Sting sucks.

*hugs*

[photosinensis.livejournal.com]

Rock and roll is just a woman. It explains everything.

Morrison was an unhappy man. Granted, rock and roll didn't make it better, really, but he was destined to go out as he did. Mercury was just gay at the wrong time. He didn't know about HIV/AIDS...few did. It wasn't the rock and roll that got him, it was science's ignorance, combined with the attitudes in the gay community at the time. Lennon was a victim of the fame. Lynott, I'll give you. Same thing goes with Bonzo and Hendrix. Heck, I'll even give you Elvis.

But the best way to honor them is not to avoid their art, but to enjoy it and heed the warnings of their lives.