I hear, as I tune into the sound blaring from my headphones.
Anyone who's familiar with Stephen King's writing will know what I'm talking about - rather than referring to my actual flesh-and-bone father, it's an expression that conveys great shame and dishonor.
And yet, it is it dishonor to go on living, even when those you love die? We only die once the last ripples of us fade away, as another well-loved figure once said. Except, life goes on. We persist in living, and as we do, we find new things to love. Not always, often not in the same way, but we do. We gradually return to the things we loved, progressively less, until months can pass without us remembering to return at all. Naturally, we say we will when a great artist goes, that their art won't die, that we'll keep listening, reading, coming back.
But then a year passes, and then three, you keep your finger on the pulse of the world, as all of us must, if we continue to live, new things begin to arise, demanding increasingly your attention and your love. There is an endless stream of things that beckon you to love them.
Normally, I would probably write about the new album from Florence and the Machine for #threetunetuesday (hi, @ablaze!), or any other of the long stream of beautiful music coming out of the world. But over the past couple of days, I've been in a Motorhead mood. The place I come from, something so well woven between my bones, I mistake it for ligament.
When Lemmy died, almost ten years ago now, I was devastated. If I'm not mistaken, I wrote a post about him last December, either for his birthday or his commemoration. What a force of nature. I've thought about Lemmy often over the past year, his indomitable strength, being on stage only a small handful of weeks before his death from a very aggressive, galloping cancer. That is not nothing. It warrants its own respect and awe, especially as I get older, and mortality begins pressing heavier on my own bones.
When he died, I listened to nothing but, and continued to return to Motorhead's music for many months and years. But life has a way of going on, and perhaps it doesn't hurt as much when it's someone far removed, like a musician (no matter how well-loved), but everything eventually dissipates just the same. New things demand our attention and our enjoyment, new people crowd the window to be loved, and we set aside the things loved previous because they're dead and can go nowhere as a result.
I recently finished Ozzy Osbourne's final book Last Rites, which got me thinking about the toil of preserving somebody's memory, something Sharon Osbourne worked towards diligently for years. I thought to myself, that's a less-talked-about facet of love. Helping them through illness is levels above mere love, but perhaps so is working to make sure the memory of them endures. I think when someone dies, one of the things that saddens us most is the inevitability of their disappearance. Slow, sometimes very lenient, but inevitable nonetheless.
The world forgets that those we love and lose are also worth remembering.
So I came back to Lem. Knowing it won't matter an inch. That when this phase blows over, I will be swallowed up by the stream of novelty, of new voices to admire, and people to love. That he will never be alive again, regardless how bitterly we mourned his death, and neither will I be sixteen again, defining integrity inside my own head.
And such a sixteen-y song, this one. Lemmy and Motorhead in a Comic Strip movie. There's Ade being a total ponce, and Rik, who somehow always managed to be so damn attractive even when he was being all goofy and purposefully gross or awkward. Some people, and I think Rik and Lemmy both here, have this great confidence about them that sort of imbues whatever they do with an otherworldly attractiveness.
And this, the greatest love song ever written, in my book. And that's saying something, because there's some proper great ones out there. But this, to me. This.
And fair enough, this gem Lemmy wrote for Ozzy when he was struggling to come up with words for his music. And already, in my head, as I mouth along the words, newer versions - the VMAs tribute from Yungblud, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry - replacing the old, burying the old we've known.
Lost and found and turned around
By the fire in your eyes
I've seen your face a thousand times
Well, this one ain't bad as far as love songs go, either.
