Badfinger
You know what I hate? Wondering what happened to everybody. Cause usually what happened is that everybody died. Or went south in some other way. Or ended up in a skid row hotel in Palm Springs looking out at the golf courses across the street.The new member, apparently, of our little Pondering Pig entourage, Jinx the Cat, mentioned Badfinger in one of his ringing declamations last night and I thought, "Geez, I haven't thought about Badfinger in over one million years. I wonder what happened to those guys?" So I looked them up.
For those of you who came in late, power pop forbears Badfinger came to fleeting fame in the late Sixties and early Seventies. They were the first in a line of many bands who were supposed to be "the next Beatles." Paul MacCartney discovered them and Apple backed them big time. They had one or two hits but then quickly disappeared. Into cultdom, I suppose. But not my cult. I just forgot about them.
What happened to the guys in Badfinger? Did they go back to dentist school? Become traveling preachers? Head for the south of France to write novels, each with his own villa? So I looked them up.
Peter Ham: hanged himself. Age 27.
Tom Evans: hanged himself. Age 36.
Mike Gibbins: moved to Florida. Died in his sleep in 2005. Age 56.
Joey Molland: still a working musician. Mainly touring with pickup musicians under the Badfinger name.
Crikey. Where's the part where they all live happily ever after?
Right now on my Itunes, the rock singer with the most melancholy rock voice in known history -- Chrissie Hynde -- is asking me the musical question "Why look so sad? Tears are in your eyes."
Chrissie, hang in there, girl. I don't know what your lifestyle is like but I pray it's filled with joy and love and health and some form of performer's inner peace.
For now, I think I have to go back up in my pear tree with a skull and meditate on it like St. Francis did.
Labels: Badfinger, Sorrow of Life
posted by Christopher Newton at 8:50 AM
6 Comments:
Memento mori, my dear pig.
The skull. The eternal smile. I'll bet Bro. Francis could talk to Jinx.
I saw Bowie in '89. The lights went low and he appeared on stage in a white funky-tux holding a skull. The tux was very posh and frilly, the skull just grinned as David sung Heroes to it. Acoustic and moody.
Too many people that have felt the warmth of limelite have also felt the coldness of self-inflicted death...a damn shame to be sure!
That's too bad about Badfinger. I didn't know. Really like their music. "Baby Blue" is one of my all-time favorites, with that cool guitar riff, soaring harmonies and evocative lyrics.
I wonder if Ham's suicide influenced Evans'. Those things happen sometimes.
Fate is such a strange thing. How is it that Ham, Evans, Gibbins and Molland weren't, say, the musicians on the Titanic?
Shame about Badfinger. I think they could have been big too. Apple was going to make them famous. They could have done it too. They signed James Taylor too and he did ok for himself. Its too bad those guys couldnt get past the shadow of the Beatles.
I don't know, Jinx. I think as a cat, you don't understand the vageries of the porcine heart. To me, it's the losers, the has-beens, the guys who didn't live to fight another day, they're the ones I want to know about. If you want to read about The Grateful Dead, you'll have a hard time picking from the million titles available. But if you want to know what happened to the guys in Badfinger, The Zombies, or The Liverpool Invasion Three, good luck finding even one article in Wikipedia. They all had their shot. They all tasted fame and fortune. Well, maybe not the Liverpool Invasion Three. Then what happened? That's where the real story is.
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