Jimi Hendrix on Death

Today would have been the 68th birthday of rock legend, Jimi Hendrix. Jimi passed away at the age of 27 on September 17, 1970 and has been gone 40 years.

Here’s an ironic quote from Jimi: “It’s funny how most people love death. Once you’re dead, you’re made for life — you have to die before they think you’re worth anything.”

Author, William Saunders, in his book: Jimi Hendrix: London, apparently agrees:

“Death made Jimi into something he had never been before: a celebrity. In life he had been a charismatic man; in death he acquired the far feebler and insubstantial luster of glamour.

Celebrities are figures of fantasy, and dead people are easier to fantasize about because they will not change or disappoint us by becoming fundamentalist Christians or selling real estate. … And they will not age, which makes the process of apotheosis — becoming a god — all the more convincing.”

What’s ironic about it to us is — even if he had not died, we probably would have picked footage from his heyday all the same, as we often do because it’s more fun to watch artists in their prime than in their dotage.

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Tags: jimi, r.i.p., william