Didn't live long enough to be bad

Today I heard the line "he didn't live long enough to be bad". I can't remember who said it, and whom they said it of, but the idea is that we sometimes lose brilliant artists well before their time, and all they left behind were their masterpieces. They never had the chance to produce anything questionable.

More interesting to me, though, is the artists who last well beyond six years of chart-topping hits to create a body of work that spans six decades. After all, in a world obsessed with youth, the Rolling Stones still sell out stadium tours and Martin Scorcese directs blockbuster movies, and all those guys are doing that well into their seventies.

There's much to be said about nostalgia (I think it's bullshit...a rant for another time) but there's no denying that so many of the 20th century's greatest artists weren't just periodically great, but canonically great. This cohort started in their 20s and hasn't really stopped yet. The funny thing is I'm not so sure that any artists that have come since will be able to touch this longevity, let alone greatness. But time will tell.

I watch a lot of live shows on the internet, and some of my favorites are recent shows of the Stones and Clapton and Pink Floyd, absolutely shredding into their late seventies. It's helped me realize that growing old is beautiful. Those guys are playing songs that are decades old, situations they lived, and have the song as an artifact of where they came from. You can see it on their faces and hear it in their voices: they're moved by their work.

I'm going to write much, much more about this, but for now I'll leave you with one of my all-time favorite videos:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/K1ijcpo1Ep8?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0