Amy Winehouse dead at 27 as Oslo student shooting frames tragedy

by Bill Palmer

Amy Winehouse is dead, my waiter at the Hard Rock Cafe here in New Orleans informs me, and the news is confirmed by widespread mainstream sources. Her death is a surprise to few. Her musical legacy, and what more she could have contributed to the music world if she’d been mentally healthy enough, will be debated for years to come. I’m not even going to try to frame that today. Another thought comes to mind instead.

“That’s tragedy,” says someone at the next table who overhears the waiter delivering the news about Amy. The Hard Rock is running a marathon of Winehouse songs and videos as a tribute, he explains. But the word “tragedy” gets stuck in my head as my thoughts drift to yesterday’s top story in which ninety-something school kids were gunned down by a madman. And that’s where the word “tragedy” keeps my mind locked in.

That’s not to say Amy’s death wasn’t tragic in its own right. It’s a personal tragedy of the worst kind for her family and friends. It’s musically tragic if you think her contributions (or her now-lost future contributions) are significant enough in that context. And for her fans, it’s true that her death will impact a larger number of people than yesterday’s student shooting. But addicts die all day every day as a result of their addictions. If you’ve been around it, you know there’s not a whole lot you can do to save them from themselves. The tragedy, perhaps then, is that substance abuse addition and the accompanying downward life spiral which is arguably either the cause or the result (or both) of the substance abuse, has no easy fix.

But the seeming inevitability of today’s death of Amy Winehouse isn’t necessarily any less tragic, or certainly any less sad, just because we all knew it was probably coming. Not to compare the two in terms of music or legacy one way or the other, but anyone who’d seen Kurt Cobain doing interviews back in the day had to know that he wouldn’t be around long either. On at least one occasion he specifically said that because of his untreatable stomach problems, he was planning to kill himself but had decided to have some fun with drugs first. That he went on to do exactly that, well it should have been a wake up call to someone, somewhere. And yet perhaps nothing could have been done to save him regardless.

Is it more tragic when a musician who’s touched so many people ends up dead through a random murder or accident, or something that has nothing to do with the damage they’ve done to themselves? Maybe. Is it more tragic when dozens of school kids are mowed down because society couldn’t catch on quickly enough that an extremist was about to turn violent? Absolutely. Ninety-two sets of parents just lost their kids for no good reason. But that’s not to diminish the fact that millions of fans just lost a singer with whom they felt connected, and have now lost out on any future music she might have delivered to them. Nor does it diminish the fact that her parents just lost their daughter as well. Last month I had a close call with a medical issue which had me not quite sure whether I was going to make it, and the overwhelming thought that crossed my mind was not that I might be getting cheated out of the rest of my life, but that my parents shouldn’t be having to bury their thirty-four year old son. Amy Winehouse was twenty-seven. For her family, this was indeed a tragedy of the worst kind.

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About Bill Palmer

Bill Palmer is Editor in Chief of Beatweek Magazine. His editorial contributions include interviews with musicians and iPhone industry coverage.