“When words fail us, music speaks.” This is particularly true when you’re staring down your own mortality. Here are four lyrics from rock songs that now feel like eerily prescient farewells, whether their creators knew it at the time or not.
Videos by American Songwriter
“Badfish”, Sublime (1991)
Ain’t got no quarrels with God / Ain’t got no time to grow old, Sublime frontman Bradley Nowell sings in this single off 40 Oz. to Freedom, the California ska-punk outfit’s 1992 debut album. Lord knows I’m weak / Won’t somebody get me off of this reef?
Like many of Sublime’s sun-drenched hits, “Badfish” hints at a darker truth. Around the time of the song’s release, Nowell had recently fallen into a h*roiin addiction that would eventually claim his life on May 25, 1996.
According to his father, the young vocalist had deliberately avoided that particular substance until Sublime became more successful. Then, he eventually took up h*roin in an attempt to boost his “larger-than-life” rockstar persona. Sadly, it would ultimately become his undoing—and when you hear Nowell sing, I swim, but I wish I never learned, you get the sense that he foresaw his own self-destruction.
[RELATED: I Studied the Best Opening Lines in Classic Rock Music—These 4 Still Give Me Chills]
“The Show Must Go On”, Queen (1991)
This October 1991 Queen track very much was a good-bye letter. It was the final single the band released before the death of frontman Freddie Mercury in November 1991.
When Queen recorded the song in 1990, Mercury was in the final throes of a battle with HIV that he’d kept concealed from the public. Lead guitarist Brian May expressed his concern about his friend’s ability to sing.
In typical Freddie Mercury fashion, he replied, “‘I’ll f—ing do it, darling,’ downed a vodka, and went in and killed it, completely lacerated that vocal,” May later recalled.
So when you hear Mercury’s unmistakable tenor belt, Inside my heart is breaking / My make-up may be flaking / But my smile still stays on, just know you’re hearing a man who knew his name would live on long after his time was up on earth. In that sense, Freddie Mercury is immortal.
“Keep Me In Your Heart”, Warren Zevon (2003)
Shadows are fallin’ and I’m runnin’ out of breath / Keep me in your heart for a while. So sang Warren Zevon on “Keep Me in Your Heart,” the final track on his final album, The Wind—released just two weeks before his death of pleural mesothelioma at age 56.
Zevon began writing “Keep Me In Your Heart” shortly after receiving his diagnosis. His friend, singer-songwriter-producer Jorge Calderón, had to prop up Zevon on his couch to finish recording the song, which would earn him two posthumous Grammy Awards.
“Goodbye to Love”, The Carpenters (1972)
Sibling duo Richard and Karen Carpenter released this power ballad in 1972. All the years of useless search / Have finally reached an end, Karen Carpenter sang mournfully. Loneliness and empty days will be my only friend
Tragically, Karen Carpenter died eight years later at age 32 following a lengthy battle with anorexia.
Featured image by Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images
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