Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Tragic Lives, Beautiful Music
I am listening now to Janis Joplin. Wow! What power! As a classically trained musician, I'm not supposed to enjoy this type of music, but as I tend to go against the norm and follow my own interests, I listen to such music. And I really like Janis Joplin, the Doors (Jim Morrison) and Jimi Hendrix. There are elements of great musicality in each of these. Janis Joplin had a passion in her voice that expressed her emotions--essential in any form of music, in my opinion. Jim Morrison was an incredible poet, a tad dark, but very lyrical. Jimi Hendrix had a natural genius for the guitar. Unfortunately, the one thing that ties these musicians together is the manner in which they died. All of them were drug or alcohol related, and all of them in their latter twenties.
I like to think of Maria Callas as the Janis Joplin of the opera world. She had quite the life, as well. She didn't die quite as young, nor by chemical means, but she did leave the earth earlier than she should have. She also left quite a legacy of music behind. There was much emotion in her music. Every fiber of her being was expressed in every note she sang. Every phrase was interpreted by its meaning, and put forward in such a way as to make the listener completely aware of what the character was feeling. In the case of Ms. Joplin, she lived what she sang, and sang what she lived, thus giving the same interpretation of life that Ms. Callas made.
Isn't it strange that many of our biggest talents have died young, often tragically? Nat King Cole (Lung Cancer), Elvis, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Steve McQueen, to name a few...and I'm sure you can name a few of your own favorite "legends".
It is my opinion that we must live our lives with gusto, for good or bad, whichever. When we leave this earth, there should be a story to tell about who we were, what we did, what we felt. I know my family rolls their eyes at the way I've lived my life (which, BTW, I've done without drugs and alcohol), but its a life that bears repeating. (Even if I DO say so myself). I would hope that I won't die tragically (or young) as the above mentioned, and that I won't waste time in chemical addiction apart from caffeine, but it would be nice to be remembered, even if only by my friends and family, for the interesting things I've done. Sometimes, it's just the joie de vivre that we must focus on, the PASSION for living. Even if we are sometimes beset with negative emotions, those negative things are still a part of who we are. We still enjoy LIVING, and doing those things that make living worth while.
