Glenn Frey, 67.
My dad’s an accomplished guitar player. And I’d usually wake up to him playing the guitar on weekend mornings. Sometimes it’d be the BeeGees, or George Harrison, sometimes gospel music, sometimes Hotel California. It would also be insane whenever I watched my dad perform Hotel California live with other guitarists at church.
It’s just one of those songs you’d never forget after listening to it for the first time. Maybe it’s because of the guitar rifts, maybe it’s because of its catchy melody, maybe it’s because of the song’s distinctive combination of guitars (love the 12-string ones!), drums and vocals.
But it is truly a piece that the world will not forget. Glenn Frey co-wrote it and played the 12-string on it, brilliantly. Watch it here.
Alan Rickman, 69.
What I love most about Alan Rickman is his enduring poise. The way he speaks, the way he carries himself, the way he performs. Professor Snape. The crazy Sheriff of Nottingham. Absolem the Caterpillar (“Stupid girl”, he’d say to Alice). And whenever he talks he’s just wickedly funny. He brings real class to a business that isn’t always associated with that.
To me, he stole the show in the Harry Potter series.
When I was in my teens and even in my twenties, I never thought about death. Because I’d always assume that I’d live a long life. I had many, many years to go. It was all so infinite. I had time to figurethingsout.
Now that I’m in my thirties (and I seem to have gotten here really quick?!), some of the Greats are leaving this world in their sixties – and that doesn’t sound too far off from where I am at now.
What scares me most isn’t the dying young – it’s the dying young and not having made any kind of impact and/or contribution to this world.
Watching other people do spectacular things with their lives is a great reminder to keep reaching for the stars in my own. Now.
“Life is so short. Why would you half-ass anything?” – Damien Elston, CEO, JT Foxx Organization.
