If you believe in forever
Then life is just a one-night stand
If there’s a rock and roll heaven
Well you know they’ve got a hell of a band
-The Righteous Brothers
It was 1974 when the Righteous Brothers sang about rock and roll stars that were taken from us too soon. Clarence Clemons was added to the list last week. He was sixty-nine years old.
In 1974 if you were to ask me about someone dying when they were sixty-nine years old I would have shrugged my shoulders and said they lived a full life! Now that my rock icons are at that age, it’s all of a sudden ‘cut down in the prime of life’. Clarence Clemons died of a stroke. Old people die of strokes. Are my rock and roll idols old people?
Sure, Bob Dylan has passed seventy…and he just played concerts in Europe and Israel.
I guess what bothers me even more than my rock legends getting old, is that many of them are trying to deny it through the wonders of the plastic surgeon. You didn’t see it with Clarence. You don’t see it with Dylan. The majority of the greats are getting old and they’re pretty much okay with it. But I watched the finale of American Idol and I saw Tom Jones and wanted to shovel dirt on him myself because he was already embalmed. Smokey Robinson? How many years has it been since he’s blinked? Even the rumors of The Boss himself makes me wonder.
Something inside me wants to believe that had Janis Joplin lived, she would not have gone through the surgeries Cher has endured. I want to think she’d look the same but old, still rasping out beauty, and wouldn’t give a damn what she looked like. Jim Morrison would rejoice in his baldness and paunch belly, but could still make you shudder with certain notes. And Elvis? Well, some things even I can’t imagine.
In the Golden Age of Rock, when the music was what it was all about we didn’t care what the singer looked like. Take a look at Flo and Eddie of The Turtles, for chrissakes! It was the music. Just because we’re getting old doesn’t mean the music is dying. They should leave their looks alone. We don’t care about it.
In my novel, 5IVE SPEED, Donald Roth has to come face to face with his middle age and whether or not he’s ready to roll over and play dead. He grew up in that same rock era of Clarence Clemons, and Steely Dan, and The Beatles, and he realizes that maybe it’s not over yet. He’s older. But he’s not done.
That’s why 5IVE SPEED has made all age groups laugh out loud. No matter what your age…you don’t want to give up. The thing that made Clarence Clemons get out of a wheelchair to perform on stage with Lady Gaga is the same thing that makes Donald Roth give himself a second chance at life.
But for those of us in that era of what they now term “Classic Rock”, 5IVE SPEED holds a place close to our hearts. Because in this era where looks are everything and you gotta lift and tighten and tweak and botox, there are still some of us, both famous and ordinary, who are going to keep moving forward and show what we’ve been through just by the looks of us. That’s one of the reasons I lowered the Kindle and eReader price of 5IVE SPEED to $0.99
Because when it comes down to it, it’s about getting the message out to as many people as you can and who wouldn’t pay a buck to laugh a lot. I didn’t learn that from any business course.
That’s what rock and roll is all about.
Nicely written! I prefer my rockers, etc. naturally, without “enhancements.” I liked your Tom Jones note. Man, talk about plastic. Cher looks like she wanted to be a Barbie doll.
I appreciated Clarence Clemons because he was who he was… A damn fine musician and never boasted. He was the yin to Bruce’s yang. We’ll never see another like him… and that’s fine by me.
Love how halfway through this post your eulogy turned into an ad for your book. Disgusting. Any justification for this?…..
If you want to honor someone in a respectful manner, do it! If you want to make money, go for it! But creating an advertisement masquerading as a eulogy is despicable. Spin it any way you want, this is just pathetic.
Sorry you took it that way, Mike. Actually, the blog happened just the way you read it. The whole situation of my rock and roll icons getting older and dying of things like a stroke reminded me so much of what I wrote about in 5ive Speed and what the characters go through in the book. I guess it must also be something I’m dealing with personally from me to even see the comparison. The blog was never meant to come off as a eulogy. The blog is a statement of dealing with age…not dealing with death. I didn’t even think about lowering the price of the book until I considered all of this together. That’s what I was making the statement about.
I understand how you might not have seen it as a eulogy, but maybe you should change the title then? RIP Clarence would imply a eulogy of some sort, although what you wrote certainly isn’t.
However, using RIP CLARENCE in the title and tweeting the article to a bunch of people expecting to read a piece honoring his life shortly after he passed is distasteful, when the article is essentially a long form ad for your book (complete with the links to be purchased on Amazon). You must realize this right? People will probably click on the link thinking they will read something heartfelt rather than a commercial.
I understand connecting your experience now to a book you wrote, but mentioning it 4 times in 3 paragraphs? That’s called shilling. Especially when you make sure we are aware it’s on sale…LOL!
All I’m saying is the multiple book mentions (and the links to be purchased on Amazon) portray you as money grubbing, opportunistic and insincere. Wouldn’t this post be as powerful without that stuff?
It will always be the music, not the physical appearance of the singer.
I kinda like Cher, though. She’s already old but still very beautiful. 