While my musical interests and obsessions go far and wide, over
the course of my life there are three particular musicians who have become
essential in my life. Whose work has always been there for me. Who have provided
the words that took me through my best times, my darkest days, and most
everything in between.
The first to come along, way back in my teen years, was
Henry Rollins. Then the college era brought the second in Robbie Williams (and if
you’re someone who thinks Rob’s just a vapid pop music egomaniac, you’ve never
listened to anything coming out of his mouth).
The third, who I came across several years ago via his band
Frightened Rabbit, was Scott Hutchison, who we lost earlier this week.
When you’re so intimately connected to the art that someone
produces, they become a part of your daily life, and you feel like you know
them. Scott was always very open about his battles with depression, so when I
read his tweets Tuesday night that indicated a rough mental state, I became
worried. I thought, I really hope someone
is with him, helping him out of this. And when I woke up to news Wednesday
morning that he’d gone missing shortly after what he put on Twitter, I was sure
he was gone, that the depression had won. Then I tried to remind myself that we
didn’t really know anything yet, and tried to become hopeful. I spent all
Wednesday and Thursday checking for news that he’d turned up just fine, but
always with the terrible gut feeling that a happy ending wasn’t coming.
Meanwhile, a virus or sinus
infection was taking over my body for those same two days, and I woke up Friday
unable to battle it any longer. I fed the cat, called in sick to work, and went
straight back to bed. It was only when I woke up again a few hours later that I
checked the news and saw that Scott’s body had been found. Between my feeling
unwell and the pain of the loss, I set about wallowing and started trying to find the words to explain how I’m feeling.
As usually happens, I remembered that Henry Rollins had
perfectly explained what’s going on in my head now, back in an LA Weekly column
after the deaths of Prince and David Bowie. Because he says it much better than
I ever could, here’s an excerpt (deletions are only to remove specific
references to those two artists):
Obviously,
everyone will eventually be gone, but sometimes when they’re extraordinary and
you know them only through their output... the sadness you feel can be
profound. There are none of the mere mortal speed bumps to impede the impact of
loss. You have heard the wisdom of hating the sin but not the sinner. It’s a
way to go but hard to do. If we were able to love music without loving the
musician, the passing of [the musician]… would be a lot easier to handle. It’s
just not how we’re wired. The music is real, so then is the sorrow of its
creator’s passing.
These
artist-fan relationships are so perfect, in many ways they have nothing with
which to compare in “real” life. That’s the thing, though, how you relate to
the music you like, that is real. It’s as real as anything.
So as you can guess, I took Scott’s death pretty hard. It is
a genuinely heartbreaking loss for me, and leaves something missing from my
life. But I also think there’s some benefit to having a relationship with
someone you’ve lost through their art. If a person you see and talk to every
day dies, you’ve completely lost your way of connecting to them. But if your
primary way of relating to someone is through what they created, that
relationship can live on. It still hurts, I’m still mourning the loss of any
future work he might have created, all the other times I might have seen him
play live, and the fact that he’s just flat out a great person who’s not around
anymore. But someday, when that passes, the music will still be there. His
artwork will still be hanging on my wall. And with that, he can still continue
to speak to me in the primary way he always did.
Of course, when I told Jody the much more shell-shocked and
less wordy version of that right after getting the news yesterday, he agreed,
but added, "It’s still someone you essentially followed over two continents.”
Good point.
Like Henry and Rob, Scott and Frightened Rabbit quickly
became an excuse to travel. They’re not coming to Seattle this tour? No
problem, I’ll go to them. I didn’t keep meticulous logs of all the FRabbits
shows I attended, but I think the final tally was 9 live performances, all in
different venues, across 5 cities in 4 countries. The last one was less than 2
months ago. I loved those live shows. I couldn’t get enough of them. And that
will probably be what I miss the most: seeing Scott up there with his
bandmates, belting out a sad song, cracking wise, seeming truly touched that
the crowd knew all of the words he’d written and sang them right back to him.
Since Scott’s disappearance, many people have said how much
his music, and his openness about his own mental health, helped them out. I
have dealt with depression and anxiety to a greater or lesser extent at
different points in my life, and in most cases, music is my saviour. Because of
some tough life circumstances these last few years, both have snuck back in and
tightened their grip on me once again. But I’m lucky, because even on my worst
days, I don’t get deep into the kind of despair that many others have to fight.
I do, however, know how hard it is to get out of bed in the morning when
depression is telling me I can’t do it, or how impossible it feels to go out in
public when social anxiety’s insistent that I shouldn’t. So I can’t even
imagine how difficult it must be when that You
just can’t do this depression voice applies to going on living.
So if you are someone who gets to that place, I beg you to
remember that we need you. The world is a better place with you in it. And if
you don’t think that’s true, please go talk to someone who will remind you that
it is, that depression lies. Scott, in his personal connections and his work,
was that person for so many people. He helped to pull so many out of their
darkest places. It’s beyond heartbreaking that he succumbed to it himself.
So please, everyone, be there for each other. If you see
someone struggling, reach out.
And the rest of the time, do your best to live by one of
Scott’s simplest, but most profound lyrics: While
I’m alive, I’ll make tiny changes to Earth.
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