The 27 Club

The 27 Club: Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Robert Johnson.

This is just to name a few. I won’t give any credence to the notion that the number or age of 27 really has anything but mythological significance; but the way that so many great artists die so tragically does have a significance which I wish to explore here.

It is not just when they die young, either. Ernest Hemingway was only a few weeks away from 62 when he took his own life, though Sylvia Plath was but 30 when she did the same. Jack Kerouac drinks himself to death at 47, and John Belushi did the same thing with dope at 33.

These deaths are no less tragic for having happened after cresting the liminal space between youth and old age. These are folks who made us smile, laugh, cry, and ultimately understand what it means to be human, and perhaps more importantly, what it means to be unique, individual, real.

Yes, real. Though these are in the collective cultural consciousness mythic figures, they were but human beings. Men and women, first and foremost, not stars. These were bleeding, breathing animals with hopes and dreams who bared their souls to the world, with their eviscerated hearts served up on a platter for dessert—not just role-players in some inane spectacle.

In discussing the 27 Club here, I am really trying to discuss that dark path which every true artist must traverse, and which some of us do not survive.

Well… as Jim said, no one gets out of here alive; but some of us don’t even get to the finish line. We collapse and die on the track; but becoming what one is, rather than pandering to what others think one should be, is a much harder way to go.

Take a look at that list above and recognize high art where it transcends mere entertainment. Decide for yourself, dear reader, where that line should be drawn, but I suspect if you think of it long enough, you’ll find that a lot of those who you believe to be true artists didn’t meet a good end.

There are exceptions, of course. Ray Charles and Johnny Cash were certainly entertainers, but within the body of their work was true high art. It doesn’t always have to be one or another; but their temperance, in more ways than one, certainly saved them from the tragic end met by their fellows.

There’s a secret here, which I could not reveal in so many plain words. A secret about those forces that beset the artist’s path on all sides. The artists give of themselves, and these forces greedily sup until nought remains; but it is thereby that the artist becomes immortal.

Now, as to entertainment, I ain’t got nothin’ against it. Life would be truly awful without a good laugh, and I play the fool as joyously as Peter Sellers does Inspector Clouseau or Rowan Atkinson Mr. Bean and enjoy it on a level as high as I enjoyed watching Moe poke Curly in the eyes when I was but a child.

But when the indwelling spirit that inspires me to a higher art takes hold, I can only deny it to the peril of my own so(u)l. Fires with no fuel are bound to burn out, and this intense inferno can be a hearth for future generations or a ridiculous act of self-immolation…

…and sometimes, I guess it’s both. Gotta toil for material, throw it all into the cauldron and see what kinda trouble doth bubble to the surface. We all know the sun is at the center of the system, and anywhere life blooms, it depends on that far-reaching light.

As above, so below, brothers and sisters. Mind the light!

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For a great rundown of the 27 Club mythos, check out MAD's podcast at Horror to Culture, which is short, sweet, fun, and super informative:

You might also dig my substack piece on Jim Morrison, where I examine what he meant by this line from The Soft Parade: "You cannot petition the Lord with prayer!"