Art, Posthumously
As I mentioned earlier this month, I really liked NO TIME TO DIE, the latest James Bond movie. I think it’s tied with CASINO ROYALE with the second-best Daniel Craig Bond movie. (SKYFALL, in my opinion, is the best modern Bond movie, and GOLDFINGER and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE are tied for the best older ones.)
So this week while I was working on GHOST IN THE SUN, I was listening to the soundtrack to CASINO ROYALE, which I’ve never done before. Now, as you likely know, the Bond movies always include a “Bond song” during the opening credits, usually something thematically related to the movie. The song for CASINO ROYALE was “You Know My Name”, which I concluded was a pretty good song.
So I Googled the song to see who had written and performed it, and exactly as the lyrics “are you willing to die?” played, I read that the song was performed by a guy named Chris Cornell who killed himself in 2017.
Man, that was spooky – to hear this guy singing about death and realizing that Mr. Cornell did, in fact, kill himself. Though after reading a little bit about Mr. Cornell’s life, it proves once again that mental illness and illegal drugs are a very, very bad combination.
This was actually the second time this year I had an experience like that. During Prime Day earlier this year, I saw that the FAST & THE FURIOUS box set was on super-sale at Amazon, and I’ve been curious about them for a while, so I bought the movies to watch them.
Before the very first movie, there’s a message from actor Paul Walker stating that all the car stunts in the movie were performed by trained professionals and urging everyone watching to drive safely and responsibly. When I saw that, I already knew that Mr. Walker died in a catastrophic car accident in 2013, so let me tell you, that was an effective message. I suppose it’s the sort of thing that might get cut from the movie out of respect for Mr. Walker’s memory – but, man, having someone who actually died in a serious accident warn you against irresponsible driving really hits home, doesn’t it?
It is a strange phenomenon that the manner of an actor’s or musician’s death can really reinforce (or perhaps alter) the impact of the things they made while alive.
That said, I think I will continue to drive carefully and avoid hard drugs!
-JM