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![[Are Cobain and Lennon still alive?]](29lead.gif)
Lindsay Pereira
“I was in Miami, and I think the Police had come offstage at around 10:15. I was told that he'd been shot, and I had the reaction that everybody had: disbelief, shock, horror. What happens when people like him die is that the landscape changes. You know, a mountain disappears; a river is gone.”
-- Sting, on John Lennon, in Rolling Stone
Much has been said about John Winston Lennon (1940-1980). About his transition from clean cut suburban boy to towering colossus of post-war pop. About his many roles of singer, songwriter, guitarist, producer, actor, author, filmmaker, artist, and political spokesperson. About his life with the Fab Four, and the much-maligned “We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first -- rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity”. About his controversial marriage to Yoko Ono and the political activism that ended on December 8, 1980, with five gunshots outside his apartment building in Manhattan.
There are tributes, of course, overflowing with memorabilia, poetry, eulogies, and elegies. Fans mourning the loss of a world figure, recording for posterity all they know of Lennon, and his work. What’s more interesting, however, is the other side of this collective adulation. One that simply refuses to let the ex-Beatle lie. Strikingly reminiscent of the earlier, macabre ‘Paul is Dead’ period, conspiracy theories about Lennon’s death thrive, decades after that cold December night.
In 1998, Sean Lennon blamed his father’s shooting on a conspiracy backed by the US government. According to him, the ex-Beatle had evolved into a ‘counter-cultural revolutionary’ who simply could not be ignored. Another theory suggests that Lennon was shot dead not by a mere assassin, but by a pawn ‘controlled by others to destroy a uniquely powerful radical figure who was likely to prove a rallying point for mass opposition to the policies soon to be implemented...by the new United States government headed by Ronald Reagan’.
Twenty-one years have passed since the killing; almost four decades since Beatlemania ran amuck. All that remains of the quiet, bespectacled revolutionary are ashes, resting, reportedly, on a shelf in Yoko Ono's apartment.
“I swear I saw Elvis Presley while I was fishing on the Salmon River in Idaho. The King looked older, obviously, but I could tell it was him. He was walking away from the river and disappeared into the bushes. I swear that at that moment ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ started playing on my radio. The experience was scary, almost like the feeling one gets from surviving an automobile accident.”
-- From the Elvis Sightings page
How does one address a figure like Elvis Aaron Presley (1935-1977)? What does one make of his biographical timeline, from truck driver and movie theatre usher, to singer and worldwide acceptance of the appendage ‘The King’? A mere mention, even today, has mothers unconsciously rearranging their hair, blushing at memories of him performing ‘Hound Dog’ on Milton Berle -- a show that got him another title: ‘The Pelvis’.
Starting way back in 1955, the hits kept coming, breaking new ground and influencing a generation of singers along the way. Then, on August 16, 1977, the music stopped. Fuelled by a drug-overdose his heart stopped, and The King faded away, alone.
The next day, August 17, 1977, holds a record for witnessing the most number of flowers transported to a single location, in history. The adulation hasn’t stopped, and Elvis lives on in more ways than you or I can ever imagine.
First came the tributes. Then, the question: Who killed the King? People turned to astrology for answers to why such a ‘gift to humanity died so young’. From there, it was just a matter of time before he moved into the realm of religion. The Official Gospel Of Elvis Web Page takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the phenomenon, using an allegorical tale of a boy from the poorest village of the Land of Plenty who goes on to become the ‘priest-king of the whole world’.
In 1988, a woman called Gail Brewer-Giorgio released a bestseller titled ‘Is Elvis Alive?’, following its huge success, two years later, with ‘The Elvis Files: Was His Death Faked?’ She put forth the theory that Elvis had actually faked his death with the assistance of U.S. Federal agents. Based on these statements the Elvis Commission was formed, publishing a review of its findings about whether he was alive or dead.
Today, there are professional Elvis impersonators, contests, festivals, revivals, and even an ‘Elvis is Alive’ Museum proffering evidence that The King lives. It has tabloid clippings of sightings, and FBI files that supposedly prove Elvis was working undercover to expose a drug ring, and had to disappear because his testimony would have endangered his life. There’s also a wax figure in an open casket, which, according to the museum’s curator, is similar to the one actually buried in Elvis’ coffin as a substitute.
Does The King still live and breathe, then? Half the planet would like to believe he does. In response to the Official Gospel piece, however, Tony Kornheiser, Washington Post columnist, reportedly said: “If Elvis really isn’t dead, this will kill him.”
“I'm worse at what I do best, And for this gift I feel blessed...”
Nirvana, Smells Like Teen Spirit
As a child, Kurt Donald Cobain (1967-1994) started off with simple hyperactivity, and was prescribed a morphine-based drug to help him concentrate in school. Since the drug kept him awake, he was given sedatives. A decade and a half later, the average child turns into an anguished grunge-rocker who goes on to whip his generation into a frenzy and releases what Spin magazine calls the Number One Album of the Decade.
Around three years after the overwhelming success of ‘Nevermind’, Nirvana comes to a screeching halt after Cobain is found dead from a self-inflicted shotgun wound in his home on April 8, 1994. He joins a hallowed list of rock icons, all dead at 27.
Following the mass hysteria, Cobain’s wife, Courtney Love, reads out a suicide note to fans. There is a public outpouring of grief, and ‘Internet Shrines’ pop up in quick succession, collating biographical information, sound clips, and even a ‘Kurt is Dead Zine’, which summarises media coverage and includes a timeline of Cobain’s last days.
Then, at around this time, a man called Tom Grant arrives, with the Kurt Cobain Murder Investigation. A private investigator, Grant talks about being hired by Courtney Love to locate her husband, and reveals that someone was using Cobain’s credit card, that he was in fear of his life, there were actually two notes left behind, and that Cobain's heroin-morphine blood level was a staggering 1.52 mgs per litre at the time of death.
The music of Nirvana still captures a particular moment in our time. It refuses to die, much like the man responsible for its creation.
“I wake up in the morning and I ask myself, Is life worth living, should I blast myself?”
-- 2Pac, ‘Wonder If Heaven Got A Ghetto’
As son of political activists Afeni Shakur and Billy Garland, Tupac Amaru Shakur (1971-1996) found that Black Panther activism was as much a part of his daily life as street smart ghetto machismo. Little wonder, then, that by the time he was 20, he had been arrested eight times.
These lessons learned the hard way were called upon later, in the poetry and music that would make him one of rap’s superstars. Surviving five bullets in November, 1994, he went on to produce impressive albums like ‘Me Against the World’ and the three million selling double-CD, ‘All Eyez on Me’.
Luck ran out on September 7, 1996. At age 25, Shakur was gunned down in a drive-by shooting, and died six days later. The case remains unsolved.
Once again, the process repeated itself. Tribute pages yielded all that could be found on 2Pac, from his life and work, to murals made after his death, his last picture, and even the Coroner’s Report.
Then came the barrage of theories that said he was still alive. There were also assumptions that he faked his death for the purpose of coming back as a different public figure called Makaveli. The reasons for his being alive were many, and all unconvincing.
Four years after being buried, 2Pac’s ‘The Rose That Grew From Concrete’ is currently riding high on charts around the world.
Lennon, Elvis, Cobain, Tupac. All dead, without a doubt. Yet, strangely enough, all alive. Again, without a doubt.
Additional Resources
Also find more on these artistes in Rediff Search.
-- Elvis Presley
-- Tupac Shakur
-- John Lennon
-- Kurt Cobain
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