I know around the world, December 24th is the day of hectic preparation, last-minute gift-shopping, church-going and all the other acts that premeditate the big C. Not for me, though. I mean sure, I'm devoting a heavy chunk of the day to making cozonaci, a traditional Christmas sweet treat. But.
December 24th is Lemmy's Day, and not to offend anyone, but it's more meaningful to me than Christmas could ever be. Even as I appreciate the ways in which Christianity has been meaningful on a global level and even a personal level. Still, I feel I learned more from Lemmy, that I continue to learn more from Lemmy about what it means to have integrity, to have pride. To walk with your head held high in any room and take shit from nobody.
To be a nice guy, because I do think ultimately he was such a nice guy and such a gentleman. Very few like him.
And if I would've been a bad man
You would've seen the good in me
You would've seen the other
The good man I could be.
But since I am a good man,
The same was all the same.
It's weird to think he would've been only 79. Weirder still to think it's been 9 years already since he's gone. I remember the day he died like it was yesterday. Some things stick with you. I can see myself still come out of sleep to a world that was without him. Remember this very intense bad feeling in the early hours of the night before. I think it registers, when the people who matter leave. I don't know, I've only lost a few, but I felt it with them, and I felt it with Lemmy. Well, fuck.
Not everyone gets Motorhead. Down the years, I've had plenty of guys try to chat me up over my Motorhead tattoos. They go "yeah, Ace of Spades...Sure I know that". But it's not really about the music at all. I mean, I love the music, but it was what he stood for, really. What he was. A good man who marched to the beat of his own drum and spat in the man's eye if he thought the man was talking shit. It was from Lemmy I first realized I didn't need a pulpit-dictum telling me how to be kind. It was from Lemmy I first heard it was just fine to love sex and life and beautiful things, that you could curse like a bastard and be a gentleman still. That you could do life following your art, that having a good time didn't need to be at anyone else's expense.
That you could be silly and weird and clever and bold. That you could do you and have a blast. It might not sound like much now, but at 14 or so, it inspired the fuck outta me. I didn't have a man to look up to growing up, so I found mine where I could. And to look at Lem, he's probably every mother's nightmare when it comes to role models, but @ladyrebecca was pretty cool about it, and all these years down the line, I still think he was a solid role model for a young kooky kid.
In fact, one of my first posts on the blockchain was about Lemmy. About what he taught me. To be true. To go after what you want. To carve a home for yourself in your own head, 'cause otherwise you're never gonna feel at home. All, lessons I carry and apply to this day.
You know, I try and keep my ear to the ground. I've found a lotta interesting, clever people in the meanwhile, but I have yet to find someone who means as much to me, someone whose teachings I hold as close to my heart as I do Lem's.
I miss him. I wish I'd got to see him, but I didn't because he died a little while before I could and I spent my 17th birthday grieving for a man I'd never met and grabbing onto life with both hands, the way he taught me. Take everything. Be kind. Try not to hurt others too much. Be true.
It's a good enough way to live.
It's very hard choosing three songs of his for #threetunetuesday (hi, @ablaze!). I'd choose all of them. The entire Inferno album, at the very least. But let's go with the wolves.
See me now, I was another,
Mean and vicious, fast and clever,
see me now, you would not dream,
The food I ate, the food that screamed,
I always resonated with wolves.
I love Lemmy's women songs. This one. English Rose. Jailbait. Love the way this man sang about sex, he was very open about the way he loved women and for better or worse, I've always found comfort in that.
The last one, you can trust until the end
And I have. There's really no words for this song. For this album. For marshalling through what must've been extreme pain in order to say goodbye and lay down something for the people who loved you after you were gone.
I don't think much about death yet, but I hope when it comes, I have some of his bravery. To go on doing what you love until the bitter fucking end, despite the pain, despite your body dying on you. What better way to go?
In your life you'll be amazed
At all the love you lose
You can never live that life again
The one thing you will never lose
Is the singing in your head
That will still be with you till the end.
I was gonna include this version as a bonus. The song that got me into Motorhead. And into so many other things. But no. I've had the pleasure of running into Phil Campbell and his fantastic band several times and that's fucking rock'n'roll as it should be. I didn't get to live through the Motorhead years, but there's people like Whit and Joel and Phil keeping it alive, and that's good enough.
Happy birthday, Lem.
