Day 67: "Out of Exile" - Audioslave (2002)

I'm not really a great believer in concepts like serendipity or kharma.  As someone who tries to fashion themselves as much as a realist as I can without descending into that Peter Hitchins/Richard Dawkins bubble of self-superior madness which seems unavoidably linked with that mindset, I'm a fan of coincidence over 'fate', and that what some people see as patterns in the chaos of the universe, I'm generally alive to the idea that people can find patterns in just about anything if they look hard enough and they really want to.

All that being said, either subconsciously or because there really is an order to the universe and it's currently messing with me, today's album continues to follow a theme of depression, and people's reactions to it, which has been poking its head up in various aspects of my life over the last week.

Listen to me here

I wish I was a better singer.  I'm not completely atonal, and can carry a tune OK as long as its within my fairly limited range, but I'm never going to be any better than mediocre as a vocalist, which is a shame, because I love singing (Karaoke, Rock Band, or just incidentally along to music) as an activity - there's something wholly uplifting about the experience which is hard to put into words.  However, if I was granted a single wish by the Vocals Genie, and I could have a singing voice like anyone I'd ever heard of or known, I'd want to sing like Chris Cornell, lead singer of Audioslave (and Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog, and his own numerous solo projects).

In a year where musical legends were shuffling off their mortal coil at an alarming rate, it was Chris Cornell's death last year which probably struck me the most on an emotional level.  Like many music fans, I idolised both David Bowie and Prince as innovators and members of a select musical pantheon, but I had come to their music later in my own exploration of what it meant to be a music fan, and appreciated them as masters of their craft;  but I grew up with Chris Cornell.  I saw the video for 'Black Hole Sun' and 'Fell on Black Days' on metal TV shows captured on VHS tape after being shown at 3 in the morning.  I heard 'The Day I Tried To Live' and 'Pretty Noose' on the couch in D's front room at 2am;  we listened to Soundgarden's 'Superunknown' album so often while playing the 'Vampire:The Eternal Struggle' card game that the two activities are indelibly linked in my mind now.  When Soundgarden broke up, and I heard that Chris Cornell would be joining the musicians from Rage Against The Machine in a new rock supergroup, I was convinced it would never work, then went out and bought their self-titled album the day after I heard 'Cochise' on the radio for the first time.

When I woke up to the news on Twitter that he had passed away after playing a reformed Soundgarden show in the US (on a tour I had hoped would come to Europe, as while I had seen Audioslave live twice, I never managed to see Soundgarden), I couldn't quite believe it.  I remember I spent most of the morning listening to Soundgarden and Audioslave in a kind of daze, then spent the afternoon learning "Fell on Black Days" on my guitar.  While on an intellectual level I understood the gap between them, it felt wrong to me that there was no obvious outpouring of tributes and recognition for him in the same way that there was for Bowie and Prince.  Instead it was just another story in the news, another slightly-obscure rock star found dead in a hotel room.

As the days passed, details of the circumstances of his death emerged, piecemeal.  It was drugs, it wasn't drugs, it was an overdose, prescription meds maybe.  Then the awful reality emerged, that he had taken his own life after struggling so long with depression and anxiety, and I felt an unspeakable sadness for a few days.  

I've talked a little before about my own up-and-down relationship with my mental state over the years.  I've known people, including my partner, who've lost dear friends and family members to their struggle with their own inner demons, and what it always seems to leave behind is guilt that they couldn't do more, weren't there at the right time, perhaps just didn't reach out when someone needed support which could have changed the terrible trajectory they found themselves on.  Depression is a terrifying minefield - Chris Cornell, a successful musician, family man, father and husband, by all accounts an affable, well liked guy with the respect of his peers still felt that pull into the abyss strongly enough to feel that he had no option but to take his own life.  I wonder if anyone could have reached out to him in time to prevent it, if there were any signs of the unspeakable event that would transpire in the preceding 24 hours which might have alerted someone.  

Was he, out on the road, too far removed from the support he might have needed?  I think the terrible truth is that it would have taken a combination of extremely vigilant people around him, and a great deal of luck, to prevent what happened.

So I listen to this album, and listen to songs like "Heaven's Dead" and I think about what he must have been trying to cope with, and I wish there was someone out there who could have helped him when he needed it.  

I don't kid myself that there's a huge audience for these posts, but in the interest of doing anything I can to be that person for someone out there reading this blog right now, if you find yourself dealing with similarly bleak thoughts, please reach out to someone - your friends will not mock, disparage, or dismiss you, and if you aren't comfortable reaching out to them, call one of the dedicated support lines, such as MIND, the CALM Project or one of the many excellent prevention helplines available.