People are the most interesting things on this little rock, and I'll wager there never were, are or ever will be many more interesting than Lemmy. Social media is constantly besieged by feigned shock and sadness when a celebrity - or whatever they've stretched the term to encompass these days - bites the dust, but the twitter and facebook waterfall of condolence I woke up to this week came as more of a shock than most.
It wasn't because I felt any kind of connection to Lemmy (I don't), or some romantic notion like him inspiring me to pick up my first guitar (I still haven't)...more that I've been listening to a lot of Motorhead recently and I couldn't picture anything that wasn't a massive amphetamine-fulled heart attack killing the invincible bastard. In a time of political correctness and corporate oppression of rock 'n' roll, Lemmy was arguably one of the scene's few surviving men of mayhem.
It wasn't because I felt any kind of connection to Lemmy (I don't), or some romantic notion like him inspiring me to pick up my first guitar (I still haven't)...more that I've been listening to a lot of Motorhead recently and I couldn't picture anything that wasn't a massive amphetamine-fulled heart attack killing the invincible bastard. In a time of political correctness and corporate oppression of rock 'n' roll, Lemmy was arguably one of the scene's few surviving men of mayhem.
Death to Immortality
Taken by cancer just days after diagnosis doesn't seem like an exit befitting one of the planet's most formidable functioning Motorheads.
***NOTE: Motorhead is 70's US slang for someone who takes a lot of speed and stays up for ever and ever. While smokers debate the meaning of existance, drinkers lament what could have been and coke fiends ramble for hours about their favorite topic (usually themselves) until they burn out, Moterheads stay up and functional for days on end, putting to rights the world and everything in it.***
I'm not actually convinced that Lemmy has died in the conventional sense, so much as he's found another plane of existence where rent, whiskey and speed is cheaper and abandoned this mortal cocoon like the loudest ever butterfly.
The world is overflowing with 'rock stars' strutting, chest-puffing, bleating rebellion and professing to march to the beat of their own drum. Until I see one of them driving a tank, adorned in a German military regalia with a Hitler Youth knife in his belt just because he thinks it looks fucking cool, nobody will convince me that there was ever a man who gave less of a fuck than Lemmy.
As an avid studier of people, it amazes me that while Lemmy was the absolute poster child for rock 'n' roll excess, he was always able to pull back from the edge and escape the trap of devolving into a pathetic junkie or booze hound. He never tried heroin despite it being practically an entry requirement for the 70-80's rock-rebel hall of infamy. He grew out of experimenting with other stuff in his youth as most of us do and took speed - his poison of choice - largely because he liked it's functionality.
He wasn't some slobbering late night lush swallowing any liquid in sight; he stuck to whiskey (only ever Jack or Jim) and Coke almost his entire life. He wrote, recorded and toured until the end. After all of that mayhem it was diabetes from all the sweet, sweet Coca-Cola that would be his biggest life altering illness, prior to the cancer that took him. Post diagnosis he resolved to take insulin and cut back on the Whiskey and Coke (switching to vodka and orange instead)and drugs. He reduced his intake of the latter considerably after having an internal defibrillator fitted due to an irregular heartbeat, but he'd continued to partake into his 60's.
***NOTE: Motorhead is 70's US slang for someone who takes a lot of speed and stays up for ever and ever. While smokers debate the meaning of existance, drinkers lament what could have been and coke fiends ramble for hours about their favorite topic (usually themselves) until they burn out, Moterheads stay up and functional for days on end, putting to rights the world and everything in it.***
I'm not actually convinced that Lemmy has died in the conventional sense, so much as he's found another plane of existence where rent, whiskey and speed is cheaper and abandoned this mortal cocoon like the loudest ever butterfly.
The world is overflowing with 'rock stars' strutting, chest-puffing, bleating rebellion and professing to march to the beat of their own drum. Until I see one of them driving a tank, adorned in a German military regalia with a Hitler Youth knife in his belt just because he thinks it looks fucking cool, nobody will convince me that there was ever a man who gave less of a fuck than Lemmy.
As an avid studier of people, it amazes me that while Lemmy was the absolute poster child for rock 'n' roll excess, he was always able to pull back from the edge and escape the trap of devolving into a pathetic junkie or booze hound. He never tried heroin despite it being practically an entry requirement for the 70-80's rock-rebel hall of infamy. He grew out of experimenting with other stuff in his youth as most of us do and took speed - his poison of choice - largely because he liked it's functionality.
He wasn't some slobbering late night lush swallowing any liquid in sight; he stuck to whiskey (only ever Jack or Jim) and Coke almost his entire life. He wrote, recorded and toured until the end. After all of that mayhem it was diabetes from all the sweet, sweet Coca-Cola that would be his biggest life altering illness, prior to the cancer that took him. Post diagnosis he resolved to take insulin and cut back on the Whiskey and Coke (switching to vodka and orange instead)and drugs. He reduced his intake of the latter considerably after having an internal defibrillator fitted due to an irregular heartbeat, but he'd continued to partake into his 60's.
The Myth, The Legend
There's many a debate (often fulled by the kind of drink and drug consumption that Lemmy would consider 'a sharpener') over how Lemmy lasted as long as he did. The Kieth Richards' of the world eventually grew up and out of their bad habits, the Ozzy Osbourne's were reduced to jibbering, incompetent wrecks and those who fell to excess early are too numerous to mention.
How did Lemmy go so hard, for so long? Was he the smartest man in the room, allowing and encouraging Chinese Whispers of his excess to propagate into rock and roll lore until they became rooted, indisputable facts? To this day there are those less mentally fortunate who believe that Prince/Michael Jackson/Marilyn Manson had a rib removed to facilitate the sucking of their own cock; if people want the legend more than the truth, why not give the paying public the Lemmy they want? Did he once go for nearly a month without sleep, or was it closer to a week? Did he bed two thousand women, or was it only a paltry thousand?
Who cares, when Ace of Spades is such a good song?
Or on a darker note, was his physical and mental state actually worse than the public were aware? Lemmy was never one to milk his celebrity in relative terms; this was not a man ready to hand over his dignity to reality TV or spend his free time walking the red carpet. Instead he was content to sit in his favorite bars exchanging brief pleasantries with fans, or at home playing video games. He was in the spotlight only when he dictated it; who's to say how much of a struggle it was to tour and play relentlessly as the years added miles to an already overclocked engine?
But who cares, when Ace of Spades is such a good song?
Or maybe the legend of the rock 'n' roll cowboy, the speed and booze-fuelled, womanising force of unnatural nature wasn't actually a legend at all. Maybe we nod and smile and file it under 'M for Maybe' because we can't comprehend how one man could consume so much, be so carefree and make such an impact on multiple generations, both as a musician and a cultural icon, while we struggle to face the office on a Monday morning after a particularly messy Saturday night.
How did Lemmy go so hard, for so long? Was he the smartest man in the room, allowing and encouraging Chinese Whispers of his excess to propagate into rock and roll lore until they became rooted, indisputable facts? To this day there are those less mentally fortunate who believe that Prince/Michael Jackson/Marilyn Manson had a rib removed to facilitate the sucking of their own cock; if people want the legend more than the truth, why not give the paying public the Lemmy they want? Did he once go for nearly a month without sleep, or was it closer to a week? Did he bed two thousand women, or was it only a paltry thousand?
Who cares, when Ace of Spades is such a good song?
Or on a darker note, was his physical and mental state actually worse than the public were aware? Lemmy was never one to milk his celebrity in relative terms; this was not a man ready to hand over his dignity to reality TV or spend his free time walking the red carpet. Instead he was content to sit in his favorite bars exchanging brief pleasantries with fans, or at home playing video games. He was in the spotlight only when he dictated it; who's to say how much of a struggle it was to tour and play relentlessly as the years added miles to an already overclocked engine?
But who cares, when Ace of Spades is such a good song?
Or maybe the legend of the rock 'n' roll cowboy, the speed and booze-fuelled, womanising force of unnatural nature wasn't actually a legend at all. Maybe we nod and smile and file it under 'M for Maybe' because we can't comprehend how one man could consume so much, be so carefree and make such an impact on multiple generations, both as a musician and a cultural icon, while we struggle to face the office on a Monday morning after a particularly messy Saturday night.
What is Left, Lives On
Lemmy's infamy and unwitting influence will give him longevity beyond the grave. But I wonder, as Mister Kilmister spends his first few days in the ether, coming to terms with the vastness of infinity and the relative insignificance of his 70 years as a carbon-based life form trapped aboard a spinning rock, how he feels about the way those of us left behind will remember him.
His music bolstered a genre; no Motorhead means no Metallica (if you buy into that kind of domino effect) and the branches spread far and wide through the rock and metal family tree. Yet Motorhead were not the Beatles or Stones and their music never really changed or evolved with the times. Non-fans might struggle to name a single track outside of the iconic Ace of Spades, although that actually seems like the kind of legacy Lemmy would be happy with. He played what he liked and if people wanted to listen, then cool. If not, they weren't paying his bills anyway.
But what if Ian Kilmister is remembered more for being 'Lemmy' than for anything he wrote or played? Would he be happy with that legacy? While the teenage rebel in all of us looks in awe at a hardcore, unrepentant existence which screams 'legend' in an age that has utterly diluted the term, would a reflective Lemmy feel that the life he led was anything to take pride in as a roadmap for others, even if that was never his intention?
His drug and alcohol excess would lay waste to many of us mere humans; at best we'd be left in an extraordinary state of mental and physical disrepair. His philandering ways would prevent the vast majority of us from finding true happiness - as we so often do - through love and security. Could even the brutally nonchalant Lemmy look back and smile at the thought of unwittingly leading others less equipped than himself down that path?
I choose to believe that Lemmy's preferred legacy would be not to have left one at all. I don't think he carried on as long as he did for the fame or the money. It certainly wasn't for the attention; as far as international rock icons go, he kept himself to himself. He was socially and politically astute, but mostly shied away from those conversations for fear of 'picking a side' for his fans. He found his own happiness by loving what he did for a living and that just happened to be the life of a throwback 70's rock 'n' roll stereotype.
Lemmy wrote the songs he wanted.
Lemmy played them how he liked.
Lemmy drank, snorted and fucked his way through life because nobody gave him a compelling reason not to.
His habits and hobbies were unique, but they were his.
Because of all this, Lemmy was free.
Nobody will every truly understand the who, the why and the how of Lemmy, because for seventy turbulent years he lived like he never owed anybody an explanation. Maybe that's the lesson we should take away from all of this; life isn't about tying to live up to the excess, success or influence of someone else...
...it's about being able to look back at the end of the line and say that you made the most of every second, whatever that may mean to you.
That's what freedom is.
His music bolstered a genre; no Motorhead means no Metallica (if you buy into that kind of domino effect) and the branches spread far and wide through the rock and metal family tree. Yet Motorhead were not the Beatles or Stones and their music never really changed or evolved with the times. Non-fans might struggle to name a single track outside of the iconic Ace of Spades, although that actually seems like the kind of legacy Lemmy would be happy with. He played what he liked and if people wanted to listen, then cool. If not, they weren't paying his bills anyway.
But what if Ian Kilmister is remembered more for being 'Lemmy' than for anything he wrote or played? Would he be happy with that legacy? While the teenage rebel in all of us looks in awe at a hardcore, unrepentant existence which screams 'legend' in an age that has utterly diluted the term, would a reflective Lemmy feel that the life he led was anything to take pride in as a roadmap for others, even if that was never his intention?
His drug and alcohol excess would lay waste to many of us mere humans; at best we'd be left in an extraordinary state of mental and physical disrepair. His philandering ways would prevent the vast majority of us from finding true happiness - as we so often do - through love and security. Could even the brutally nonchalant Lemmy look back and smile at the thought of unwittingly leading others less equipped than himself down that path?
I choose to believe that Lemmy's preferred legacy would be not to have left one at all. I don't think he carried on as long as he did for the fame or the money. It certainly wasn't for the attention; as far as international rock icons go, he kept himself to himself. He was socially and politically astute, but mostly shied away from those conversations for fear of 'picking a side' for his fans. He found his own happiness by loving what he did for a living and that just happened to be the life of a throwback 70's rock 'n' roll stereotype.
Lemmy wrote the songs he wanted.
Lemmy played them how he liked.
Lemmy drank, snorted and fucked his way through life because nobody gave him a compelling reason not to.
His habits and hobbies were unique, but they were his.
Because of all this, Lemmy was free.
Nobody will every truly understand the who, the why and the how of Lemmy, because for seventy turbulent years he lived like he never owed anybody an explanation. Maybe that's the lesson we should take away from all of this; life isn't about tying to live up to the excess, success or influence of someone else...
...it's about being able to look back at the end of the line and say that you made the most of every second, whatever that may mean to you.
That's what freedom is.
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