Death is there to keep us honest...

December 22nd, 2007 at 09:31pm Mitch Mulhall 171

Dan Fogelberg died last Sunday. Age 56. Had I anything resembling musical talent, I would never have deviated from my classical music upbringing, but Rock was too great a force when I was growing up, and I gave up piano as soon as my parents relented. My bad.

Then came, of all things, Disco.

Thankfully, Twin Sons of Different Mothers, a collaboration between Fogelberg and flautist Tim Weisberg, came out in 1978, and at least in my ear helped all but eliminate the neurasthenic superficiality of Saturday Night Fever.

More importantly, one score and zero years before Eric Clapton turned his eye inward and brought about the “unplugged” craze, Dan Fogelberg defined it. I realize Alpha6 may kick the crap out of me for praising soft rock, but I grew up, as I mentioned earlier, in the age of disco. I’ll take a Fogelberg tune over a Bee Gees hit seven days a week, and twice on Sundays.

Last week I heard Jimmy Ibbotson call in to Congames to praise Fogelberg for his spiritual view of the world. That makes a lot of sense to me. Even in the early 80s, when I grew tired of Fogelberg’s unmistakable sound and his obligatory climb up the pop charts, I still remembered the way I felt in the winter of ’78, listening to “Since You’ve Asked” as pillow-sized snowflakes floated earth-ward under a Grand Avenue mercury vapor light...

I write to say hearing of Fogelberg’s death last Sunday saddened me—I had no idea he was battling cancer.

Of Death, Fogelberg once sang: Death is there to keep us honest, and constantly remind us we are free.

Surely it is not nothing that the words Fogelberg wrote and set to music live on in peoples’ minds…

Cheers,

Entry Filed under: Music, Aspen, Pop