Songs, Sorrow, Solitude, and Suicide

There's an inextricable link that this article will attempt to explain. This is not the first of its kind and most likely will not be the last of its kind, but this piece will discuss artists who took their own life.

If you or someone you know struggles with mental health, get them help before it's too late. You can always call the suicide hotline at this number: 1-800-273-8255. You can also chat them here.

This is a trigger warning.

On the surface, it may not make sense that rock stars kill themselves so frequently. After all, isn't that the American dream, to come from humble beginnings and come into great wealth through labor? Isn't that what all these (mostly white males) wanted, to have legions of fans and to avoid having to deal with the 9 to 5? Isn't it great to be a rock star?

A quick response is, "No, being famous sucks! They take away your privacy, everyone expects everything from you."

I don't think that's wrong, it certainly sounds hard. I like my privacy sometimes, and I actually really like my 9 to 5, I'm proud to have it too. I work with cool people and my office is full of porn and laptops and those are three of my favorite things (if you include the people). I'm not going to say being a rock star isn't hard or that it isn't potentially incredibly overwhelming to the suddenly famous.

But that's not the issue. Focus on the population, who are we talking about, who are the people killing themselves. They're artists.

That's the problem, and it always has been, always will be. It's where art comes from, it's the separation and the individuality that motivates someone to express themselves. An artist is always accomplishing something by creating, it's what makes them artists. It's an outpouring of feeling that they can't shake, it's the presentation of an idea that they believe in, it's a memory that exists vividly in their personality, it's the product of the artist not quite fitting in.

I think Ian Curtis was beautiful before Joy Division and we know that Chester Bennington felt alienated as a child, adolescent, and a teen. Guess he felt pretty alienated as an adult too. If they were the same as us, they wouldn't speak the way they do, and they wouldn't make the art that they came to be known for.

And so it's a tragedy. If depression is a disease then these are sick people. These are sick people whose fascination with sadness couldn't be deterred by success or admiration or a Ferrari or being Rick Rubin's friend. None of it helped in the end. I can only hope that these heroes were able to enjoy moments and seize days in their journey.

I'm not of the camp that believes suicide is a sin. I believe no one asked to be born and no one should feel compelled to complete an agreement they never agreed to. If you're in pain and you believe that suicide is the most effective way to handle that pain, then I believe in your liberty and your right to determine your path.

And in that respect, I will not mourn Mitch Hedberg's death, I will mourn his life. I will not cry for Eliot Smith's passing, I'll cry because nothing the world gave him made it worth it. The shame is that these people were unhappy and weren't able to appreciate the gifts that they were. Their lives and deaths are events separated by a very small moment, but they are separate nonetheless and every single death since the first man is exactly the same, no matter how famous the human was less than a second before.

You should have understood by now that this isn't a musician's curse, it's an artist's curse. You should also understand that this article has no greater meaning or purpose, and it especially has no answer.

What it does have is a request. Please remember next time you're discussing an artist's suicide that it can be very difficult to see someone's pain and even more difficult to understand it. The person sitting next to you could live in a hell comprised solely of their imagination and the skin that binds it. Please remember that you can almost always act in a way to ease the pain of your neighbor.

Help keep your favorite artists alive by encouraging others, by teaching children the values of altruism, by participating in as many meritocracies as you can, listen to your neighbors and be active in your community.

Life is hard, and as artists prove, sometimes it's hard for reasons that don't make sense, sometimes people are born with it. While as a society we can't fix other's neurochemistry, we can make their time on earth better than we have been.

Be nice to each other y'all. Especially if you're trying to see that fourth album where they really find their identity after the success of their first album sort of confused their identity.

Everyone loves the fourth album, so be nicer, okay?