We’re all going to die. That’s a phrase that gets tossed around a lot, and it’s true. We are all going to die eventually. But let’s face it, some of us are going to die sooner than others. Age, health and lifestyle all contribute to it. If you’re 68 years old, have diabetes and various heart issues, and have lived most of your life fuelled entirely by cigarettes and whiskey, then you probably don’t have much more time on this world.
In case I’m not being clear let me be a bit more specific; Lemmy Kilmister is going to die.
Of course that’s not a pleasant thing to say and obviously I hope that Lemmy lives comfortably for as long as he possibly can, but nowadays it seems inevitable that that won’t be very long. Motorhead have been forced to cancel multiple shows due to his health, and the years of alcohol and drugs haven’t exactly helped. Lemmy has drank a bottle of Jack Daniels every day since he was 30, and while many would like to see that as cool, honestly it’s way past the point where it becomes a problem. Of course, as of last year Lemmy has stopped drinking Whiskey for the sake of his health. However it seems as though he’s not quite sure how that works, having swapped the Jack Daniels for two bottles of wine a day. Yes, all signs point to it; Lemmy is near his end.
Now to be fair, from what I’ve seen most Motorhead fans have been surprisingly accepting of this. Most seem to acknowledge that Lemmy’s lifestyle was always going to catch up with him, and that it’s a wonder he’s lived as long as he has. But it’s an alarmingly frequent trend among metal fans to treat our personal gods like actual deities, and as such there has been an abundance of comments to the effect of, “Lemmy can’t die, he’s immortal.” Of course the vast majority of these comments are jokes, but nevertheless they create a false sense of hope, one that makes me incredibly uncomfortable.
I’m reminded of when another metal legend, Ronnie James Dio, was first diagnosed with stomach cancer. The general consensus among metalheads was that the legendary Dio would kick cancer’s ass, and that he, like Lemmy, was invincible. It started as over the top of course, but people eventually started believing that Dio was guaranteed to make it. Of course that didn’t happen. Dio was 67 years old when he died, and it simply isn’t easy to beat off cancer at that age. This of course, left his fans devastated, but perhaps if they had taken in the real possibility, however difficult it may be, that their hero was likely to die, it may have been a bit easier to swallow when it actually happened.
I would have hoped this would have been enough to get the message through to people, but the reaction to Dio’s death proved me wrong. The line found in the comments section under every news article on his death was the same. “Dio didn’t die, he just went back home.” Yes, even his painfully human death didn’t stop the metal-loving public’s perception of him as a god. Perhaps that is sweet in a way, but it simply isn’t accurate. Dio was never a god, he was a great singer and a fantastic frontman, but he was a human being. The same is true of Lemmy. Motorhead have released some fantastic albums, but that doesn’t make him immortal, and the jokes that he is is nothing but damaging, as comforting as they may be.
In the end, all that can be done is to hope for Lemmy to recover from his health woes and maybe to learn what cutting back means, but also to realise that he is a human being, and that we all have to go someday. Hopefully that day won’t be for a while yet, but if Lemmy were to die tomorrow, we could at least agree that he left a great legacy. And we don’t have to turn mortals into gods to do that.
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