"If I didn't sing the blues," he said, "there would be blood on my hands. I sing and play my murder, hoping to cleanse my soul."
You never know, when you see or hear or touch or taste someone's art, what tormented motivations went into its creation. Was painting de sterrennacht somehow less insane than cutting off the lobe of an ear with a razor? Though he gave the ear to the prostitute, Rachel, he did it for love of Gauguin, for fear of losing him. A few months later, when Guaguin was gone forever, Van Gogh painted de sterrennacht, The Starry Night, there in the mental hospital. What would he have done, I wonder, had they given him another razor instead of a paintbrush? What madness disappeared into those swirling stars?
Singing in a rough blues bar one night in Chicago in 1963, he was killed by a stray bullet from a drunken violence that had nothing to do with him. He bled to death on the stage, clutching his guitar. When they pried his hands from the instrument, there was no blood on them. His hands, though calloused by the strings of his art, were clean, like his soul.
Hello, friends. How are you today?
Later. Love.
