ELIZABETH SANKEY
This week was officially seven days of death, and while we don’t want to be cloying the blog roll with deceased posts…we’re probably going to. After trying for approximately 43 minutes (I wasn’t timing, but I know I drank one litre of water, and that takes at least 40, right?) to compose something MJ related for this obituary, I realised that I was never a big Michael Jackson fan.
Don’t get me wrong, I know he’s an icon, and I know we’ve lost an incredible pop cultural element - the man soundtracked many of our childhoods. His death is obviously ridiculously tragic, but in terms of it affecting me personally? Nope. And although it would be easy for me to drum up some long-forgotten memories of dancing awkwardly to Thriller when I was 12, or belting out Earth Song in a School assembly - I would be lying if I claimed to have been hit by the twitter-crashing sadness so many others have.
Steven Wells died on Tuesday. I just want to put that out there, because even though death isn’t some schoolyard rounders game, with everyone picking sides - if I had to choose one specific camp of grief, I would pitch my tent in his. No question. Weirdest death metaphor ever?
I don’t want to wax lyrical about his immense talents, or his far-reaching influence, or even mention that he could be a bit of a bolshie cock - that’s what Ask Jeeves, and his wikipedia page are for. It’s just that in those 43minutes of MJ emo-struggle, all I could think was:
“What would Swells say?”
“Wanna be starting something” is one of the best fucking songs ever written though.
