Tanner Olin Smith was thesinger, guitarist, and bandleader for Laminated Cat. I got to know him casually in the year or two prior to his untimely death. I always liked spending time with him. He was kind, smart, talented…just a good guy. I wish I had gotten to know him better.
I’m going to talk about some serious stuff here so move along if you were trying to keep things light today.
Scott Hutchinson from Frightened Rabbit died by suicide in 2018. Throughout his music Scott often talked about anxiety and depression and suicide. I highly recommend Frightened Rabbits 2008 album The Midnight Organ Fight. I want to link every song from that album but I’ll limit it to just 3.
In this song he compares anxiety and depression to leprosy and asks the question to his significant other why would you love a modern leper? Are you a masochist?
Scott often said that he openly wrote and sang about his illness hoping that it would help someone else.
In this song you’ll hear the lyrics “when my blood stops someone else’s will not” and “while I’m alive I’ll make tiny changes to Earth” indicating his desire to help others by sharing his feelings and his pain.
In this song you’ll hear him ask the question “is there peace beneath the roar of the Forth road bridge?” and then make the somewhat hopeful statement “I think I’ll save suicide for another year.”
His body was found near the shores beneath the Forth road bridge near Edinburgh. Making this song so much more powerful knowing that he predetermined his death more than 10 years in advance and those thoughts were constantly with him.
Instead of posting the obvious choices from Fountains of Wayne or That Thing You Do, today we’ll go with a tune from Ivy. Adam Schlesinger’s death hit me harder than any celebrity before or since.
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