Unfortunate Musical Deaths

You might have noticed an awful story in the news over the weekend.

A British tourist was tragically shot dead in a bar in Amarillo, Texas, in what appears to be a bungled robbery.

He was on a road trip from San Francisco to Florida.  The only reason his party had stopped in Amarillo was because of his love of the song ‘Is This The Way To Amarillo?’ by Tony Christie, which was recently revived by Britain’s favourite rememberer of things that happened in the 80’s, Peter Kay.

It’s a chilling example of how music can inform your choices in life, sometimes with very unfortunate results.

 

In 1979, Hank Lazarus was a teenage boy who dreamed of growing up to be either a city planner or the starting quarterback for the Minnesota Fuzzboxes, his local college team.  That was until he heard ‘Walking On The Moon’ by The Police.

From that moment on, and despite the chilling imagery in Sting’s lyrics regarding potential skeletal fractures (‘I hope my legs don’t break; Walking on the moon’), Hank poured all of his efforts into becoming an astronaut, rising to the rank of Commander in NASA and flying on several missions. 

The Columbia Space Shuttle crash in 2003 was one of the darkest moments in NASA’s history, as 7 astronauts lost their lives as the shuttle broke up over Texas on re-entry to the Earth’s atmosphere.  

Hank was not on that mission, however he did suffer complications from an ingrowing toenail during a 4 month stint on the International Space Station in 2006. 

He now lives a quiet life as a shoe shop owner, and curses The Police for his often mildly painful toe. 

Pigeon-racer and resident of Rockville, Illinois, Brian Fruesli celebrated his 21st birthday by entering his pigeons in a gruelling 45-mile race to Cloverdale. 

His friends and family had arranged a secret birthday party that night for Brian, with cake, dancing, and everything. 

However, late that afternoon Brian was returning from Cloverdale with his birds, who finished a creditable fifth, when he tuned into an unfamiliar local radio station and REM’s ‘Don’t Go Back To Rockville’ burst onto the stereo.

Hurt by the apparent lack of a planned birthday party and spurred by Michael Stipe’s outlining of the bleak prospects in his home town (‘You’ll wind up in some factory that’s full-time filth and nowhere left to go; Walk home to an empty house, sit around all by yourself’), Fruesli turned onto Highway 70, and drove in the opposite direction to his hometown, never to return.

He was found three days later, dead in the back of his van, pecked to death by his hungry pigeons.

Michael Stipe later clarified that the Rockville referred to in the song was Rockville, Maryland, not Rockville, Illinois. 

A statue of Stipe, from his blue-face period, now stands in the town square of Rockville, Illinois.

Jennifer ‘Jenny’ Crumbles from Deptford, London, had been accepted to be a contestant on Blockbusters, the popular tea-time quiz show hosted by Bob Holness.  Jenny was to appear with her sister Violet as a two player team.  The sisters were keen trivia-buffs, and knowledgeable figures in Far East-based TV quiz gambling rings had backed them heavily before their appearance. 

One night, Jenny was enjoying The Evening Session with Steve Lamacq when she heard Shed Seven’s career-defining epic Going For Gold.

In a moment, her life turned on its head.  She knew that she could no longer appear on Blockbusters, that the only way she could find true quiz-based happiness was by appearing on Going For Gold, the lunchtime BBC1 fiasco where people from Germany, Italy and Finland struggled against English opponents in a quiz in which English was the only language spoken.  European contestants were put at a further disadvantage by the quizmaster being a heavily accented and rather peculiar Irish man.

Sadly, Going For Gold had been taken off air several years previously, and Jenny was reduced to stalking genial host Henry Kelly outside the studios of Classic FM.

Violet went on to complete 5 gold runs as a single contestant on Blockbusters, winning a camping holiday in some woods, badminton lessons for three people, a fully stocked herb rack, an annual pass on the Dean Forest railway, and a fanny magnet.

Has a song changed your life for better or worse?  Have you ever done anything ever?  Can you type and hit Enter?  Leave your comments below…