Actors and musicians portray many varied emotions, live different lives, sing blues and sometimes rhyme motivational tunes, express love and at times croon the morbid reality of life. They touch lives of millions and rouse spirits of many. But a few, who do not just perform, but live their art, are the eternal stars; they are stars for what they are, not for what they do. Those who brave their last days in a way that the world treasures their last moments and immortalize their last quotes, die leaving behind their undying aura. Here???s the list of the celebs who view(ed) death through rose-tinted glasses.
Kurt Cobain
???When all usefulness is over??? it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one.???:- Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
The lead singer of Nirvana always penned lyrics like, ???Load Up the Guns and bring your friends, it???s fun to lose and to pretend. She???s over bored and self assured, Oh know I know a dirty word???. His songs often carried angst and dismay. His words painted pictures of him as if he had decided he was no longer a human being, ???the lights go out and the manic roar of the crowds begins, it doesn’t affect me??? read the Cobain???s suicide note, because fame and success didn???t attract him now. ???I haven’t felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music along with reading and writing for too many years now. I feel guilty beyond words about these things???, he added in the note.
The worldly charms didn???t seem to move him after a certain point, probably that???s why he chose to rise ahead and justified his decision to end his life noting, ???it’s better to burn out than to fade away???.
John Lennon
John Lennon was a revolution in himself both with the Beatles and post Beatles. Ideologically, Lennon seemed as a rebellious leftist. There was a time during the Vietnam War, when he was considered as a threat to America. And who can forget his most controversial quote, ???Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink… We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock and roll or Christianity???.
But ironically, he was a fearless man but not a rebel, he was the one who always desired for world peace, compassion and advocated meditation. He was disappointed that the world he???s living in is not perfect ??? kind of world he always ???Imagined???. His quote, ???Guilt for being rich, and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn’t enough and you have to go and get shot or something??? reflects that somewhere down there he was romanticizing death that could give him peace and escort him out of the melancholic world.
Jim Morrison
Jim Morrison, the lyricist and lead singer of ???the Doors???, and undoubtedly, one of the most charismatic frontmen in the rock music history, was also famous for his self-destructive lifestyle. He had become outrageous in public being excessively in drugs and drinks. But he didn???t lose himself on it and rather used the crisis to create most critically acclaimed albums. Morrison Hotel, 1970 was a massive success, which mostly steered to blues.
His orientation towards life was such that he drew inspiration from gloomy incidents, for instance, Morrison witnessed a deadly car incident in his childhood, which he often mentioned in many of his songs like, ???Dawn’s Highway” from the album An American Prayer, and again in the songs “Peace Frog” and “Ghost Song”. He believed the incident was most formative event of his life so he pictured it in lyrics as, ???Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleedin; Ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile eggshell mind…???
Wendy O. Williams
Violent by character and punk by soul, Plasmatics??? lead singer Wendy O. Williams was ???The Queen of Shock Rock??? and a fearsome performer. She always lived life on the edge and was also dubbed as an ???anarchist???. When no more boundaries remained for her to cross and nothing appealed her as adventurous, she went on to taste death. Wendy took her life at 48 with a gunshot.
Her suicide note read, ???I don’t believe that people should take their own lives without deep and thoughtful reflection over a considerable period of time. I do believe strongly, however, that the right to do so is one of the most fundamental rights that anyone in a free society should have. For me much of the world makes no sense, but my feelings about what I am doing ring loud and clear to an inner ear and a place where there is no self, only calm.???
Ozzy Osbourne
The ???Godfather of Heavy Metal???, Ozzy Osbourne made music, which was deeply psychedelic and depicted escapism. Playing heavy blues, he became the ???The Prince of Darkness???.
His music was also his character. He once quoted, ???Bubbles! Oh come on Sharon! I’m fucking Ozzy Osbourne, I’m the Prince of fucking Darkness. Evil! Evil!???. He wrote his beliefs in ???Suicide Solution???; he felt he???s ???living a lie??? Where to hide, suicide is the only way out??????
Katie Melua
???I love death and get off on fear???, says 24-year singer Katie Melua, whose first album ???Call off the Search??? pictured her experiences in the troubled capital of Northern Ireland, and song “Faraway Voice”, was about the death of Eva Cassidy.
She has expressed that she finds comfort in death. For Melua, death is not something to be afraid of, rather ???It???s like your best friend: It will wrap its arms around you eventually and embrace you, and that???s it. You???re gone???, quoted Melua.
