Creatives and Mental Health
Whenever I hear a John Lennon song come on the radio, it puts me right back to my childhood and the sound of my mother singing, or the sight of her dancing along. She loved the Beatles, but mostly, she loved John Lennon. She used to tell me about the day he was shot; I was a baby so I don’t recall it, but she said that the day to happened, it was like the end of the world, and she couldn’t stop crying. I could never understand it. I have never been able to understand it. Why do people cry and get upset when someone famous dies? It isn’t like they know them.
Over a year ago, I got a tattoo, underneath the image, it says RIP Chester. In July 2017 Chester Bennington, one of my favourite singers hung himself. Suddenly, I knew. I realised … I felt exactly why people get upset.
Linkin Park was perhaps the pivotal band in my liking for nu-metal and rock. I had always liked it, but I mean really like it. Like, understand it. I played their album Hybrid Theory until everyone in my house was sick of hearing it, and then I played it some more. And even now, I have songs from that album in my playlist. Songs that mean things to me. Songs that have been with me.
To Chester, I was just a face in a crowd of fans who’d sung along with him. Who’d cheered and yelled. He could have walked past me in the street, and he wouldn’t have known who I was. To me … he was…
