Better off dead?

January 17th – Best thing to do to get a number one hit? Well, die of course. It certainly worked for John Lennon, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Freddie Mercury, Jimi Hendrix and a whole host of other performers. Trouble is that kind of promotion only has a limited lifespan… no pun intended; oh, I don’t know though… 
John Lennon’s ‘Starting Over’ single, released on October 24th, was hovering at number three in the U.S. charts but was propelled up to the number one slot after he was shot outside his apartment by a Mr. Chapman, a man who took celebrity stalking to a whole new level, and on this date in 1980, the song was still top of the U.S. heap ten or so weeks after release and decease…. 

That reads very callously but I trust you all to know me well enough by now to get my drift. There’s no malice in the things I write, just an explanation of events and the route I choose to travel after reading the signpost. 

It’s a cold fact of life that great people have to die before their worth is recognised; take Darwin. I mean, he’s dead and look what he achieved… and Vasco de Gama? Where would the Indian spice routes be now if not for him? Languishing at number fifteen in the discovery chart, that’s where. He had to die before we recognised his contribution to crew efficiency and chicken tikka masala. 

With those two illustrious names to add to our roll-call, it’s little wonder that death could be seen as a wise publicity move. That death, from right cause (the more ‘glamorous’ the better…my feeling is there’s more kudos to be gained from dying in an attempt to rescue a damsel in distress than kudos gained from tipping out of a nightclub three-parts dressed and four-parts pissed, slipping on a dog turd and cracking your head on a kerb-stone, do you not think?)…sorry; to continue…that death, from the right cause, would enhance your reputation and standing in the pantheon of pop.

In some cases it might be so…but when Mr. Lennon’s Christmas number one slot in the U.K. was unceremoniously taken by St. Winfred’s School Choir’s rendition of, ‘There’s No One Quite Like Grandma’…well, all the good work just goes wheels-up in a ditch really, and there’s no chance of a come-back either…