Gone
Too
Soon
By Mosi Reeves, Brittany Spanos, Kory Grow, Andy Greene
& Justin Ravits
Years from now, the most earnest, intensely felt remembrances on
Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – the ones reacting to an untimely,
unexpected passing of an icon like Chris Cornell, Prince, Amy Wine-
house or Whitney Houston – will serve as yellowed newspaper clip-
pings once did: They’ll take us back to that historic, shared moment of
gut-punching, breathtaking shock and sudden loss.
Who did you text when Michael Jackson died? Where were you when
John Lennon was shot? Did you, like many devastated fans, flock to
the Dakota on Manhattan’s Upper West Side after you heard? Which
Nirvana song did you play over and over again after Kurt Cobain’s body
was found? Do you (or a parent) have a story about Elvis’ last day?
Revisiting these memories again and again (and we do) can feel
traumatic, and the most sensational details still shock decades later.
But there’s a more expansive, alternate history component at work, too,
imagining what these legends might have created had they lived, and
how their absence has shaped the music and popular culture that fol-
lowed. Most cliches begin as essential truths: Yes, the artists featured
and remembered here are gone – but they’re never forgotten.