6/4/2023 0 Comments Who wrote paint it blackAnd now, they’ve since painted their 50-year-old Hot Lips logo from red to black to honor their fallen friend. For the weeks following his death, had no links, but an image of Charlie Watts in a beautiful bespoke suit took up the whole page. I believe Charlie dedicated himself to the art of subtlety far beyond efficient use of the hi-hat, and made the Stones the Stones. It’s been said that music is the space between the notes. Rectify that tomorrow!” He then goes on to instead rectify his statement: “Charlie Watts has always been the bed that I lie on musically, and to see that note about how to ‘rectify’ seems extraordinary.”Ĭredit: Richard Ecclestone/Redferns/Getty In his first mention of playing with Charlie, Keith Richards shares in his autobiography, Life, an early diary entry: “Charlie swings but hasn’t got right sound yet. These words are not superlatives! His background in jazz taught him it’s not always what you play, but what you don’t. However, “Grave memorial, hewn white stone / Like the comforting caress of a mother or a friend you’ve always known / It evokes such pain and significance / What was once is reduced to remembrance / And the generations pass without recompense / What pretension, everlasting peace / Everything must cease.” What was Watts if not the caress of the band and the friend we’ve always known? Always there, since 1963, in fact - having played on all their studio albums and never missing a gig - and the backbeat to quite literally my entire life. It’s possible that Greg Graffin - who holds a Ph.D in zoology and a master’s in geology, lectures courses in natural sciences, and has three published books centered on evolutionary biology - wrote the poignant words and music to broadly address the natural world in all its unnatural conditions. But instead of switching tracks, this time I am suddenly dispirited by a breaking news notification on my lock screen with the cold, cruel words: “Rolling Stones Drummer Charlie Watts Dies at 80.” My jaw and phone drop reflexively just as the opening strains to Greg Graffin’s somber piano ballad “Cease” swell and fill the room. I listen to music (loudly) in the shower, and as I get out I often pick up my phone to change the song. The death of Rolling Stones’ drummer Charlie Watts, in all sincerity, played like something out of a movie. At least that’s what it felt like to me.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |