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Heroes
Martyrs
St George, Good King Richard and the big Pussy Cat
The Day The Music Died
9/11 Inside Job?
When James Dean died who was the bigger teenage hero, James Dean or Marlon Brando? And what would have happened if Brando had died young and glorious and Dean had grown old and fat? I could not see there being any James Dean posters on the walls of teenagers of the 1970s if James Dean was at the time playing the role of a middle class father (perhaps to Jodie Foster). He was a second rate actor who only made one smart career move in his life. But I can see the face of Brando the dead young hero hunched over his motorcycle peering down from bedroom walls from Baltimore to Berlin. |
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What about Buddy Holly. He was a gangly kid from a hick part of Texas. Would he have had the talent to survive the dawning of The Beatles era? I doubt it. Would Jerry Lee Lewis have made a much better dead hero if he died in the last months of the fifties?
What about the Starman? Wouldn't every single teenager in the entire world be worshipping at the shrine of David Bowie if he had died in 1975?
Jim Morrison would now be fat, retired and forgotten living on a small vineyard in California. The Doors could not have survived his ego for long. A similar story would have happened if Marc Bolan had lived longer. His career was built on his looks, which would have faded. Where would he be now? After his role as Che Guevara in Evita he would be hosting a late night talk show on CBS and selling L'Oreal shampoo.
On the opposite side of the coin look what happened to Bono, in the late eighties he was a figure of enormous sex appeal, but now he looks like any middle aged Irishman with pretentions to be cool, almost a figure of ridicule.
I am sure I am not the only person who was blissfully unaware of the talent of Kurt Cobain while he was alive, and looking with objective eyes and ears I can see why. There is nothing like a martyr to boost a cause.
What would have happened if George Michael had met some armed psychopath in that public convenience instead of an undercover policemean? He would now be the gay rock martyr to eclipse all others. And his talent would be valued as never before.
Just imagine that those rumours had been true; Paul McCartney had died at the time of the release of the Abbey Road album. What would be his status now? I suggest he would be seen as massively more talented than John, who would just be seen as the cheeky one. Paul would be the one that had the talent. Yesterday would be the most popular tune of all time, and not just with the muzak industry. For ever in the shadow of a partner he could never outshine John Lennon's life would have been totally different. He would have reacted badly to the talk of Paul's genius and the press would have marked him out for further censure because of it. He would have carried on keeping The Beatles going until George and Ringo could stand him no more. The Beatles would never have toured because John would not have played Paul's music, and the group could not stand the pressure to do so. John would probably not have attracted any stalkers and would now be a gaunt man in his mid sixties, probably regretting a lifetime of abusing his body with cigarettes and other drugs, a reclussive figure to invoke pity.
“It's funny how most people love the
dead.
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