Alex Chilton: Further Ruminations

1950-2010

Why were so many people so profoundly affected by the passing of Alex Chilton? Here’s a thought: The musician

was the voice of at least a subset of a generation. Call it the “spent a chunk of the 80s/90s rewinding the cassette of Radio City and waiting for that boy/girl to call generation.” Most of the folks above, I would guess, are older than 35 and younger than Chiton himself. But not that much younger. Chilton was born in 1950, and he was 59 when he died. With better living/luck/genes, he might have seen his threescore and ten, but he was not, by any means, a talent cut down in the flower of youth. If you are a member of the generation I mention above, the people in the bands you like are starting to die not because of heroic abuse of drugs/alcohol, but because they are getting old. Unfortunately, that means that any one of us could be next. That’s the scary part.

There’s more.