You’ve Got Diamonds for Eyes, It’s Time for You to Rise.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
A short documentary on Mark Linkous, done for Dutch television in 1998. He talks about his 1968 Dodge Charger, motorcycles, and injured animals he finds in the country. He occasionally mentions his music. I came across this while doing some research for the Dark Night of the Soul compilation I reviewed last May.
Linkous took his own life this weekend, which makes too much tragic sense. Like his collaborator Vic Chesnutt, there’s only so much pain a body and mind can endure in one lifetime. But much of Linkous’ pain was self-inflicted; the above clip was filmed two years after the first time he died, of a drug overdose while on tour opening for Radiohead, in 1996. He was found unconscious and alone, with his legs pinned beneath him. The shock that occurred when doctors straightened out his legs caused his heart to stop for several minutes.
He recovered, and his subsequent music, as infrequent as it came, was haunted by the specter of his own death. But miraculously, it was never sad. Linkous was so valuable to so many (including myself), because he never wallowed. He wondered, he was dazzled, he loved intensely. He was a redneck who lived in the sticks. He made music that celebrated very, very simple things, in transcendent tones. “Gold Day,” from It’s a Wonderful Life, still moves me to tears, in a way that none of his spaced-out contemporaries (Flaming Lips, Grandaddy, Mercury Rev) were ever been able to do. Sometimes it can weigh a ton.
Thank you for the link and for what you have to say about Mark Linkous. But I have to say, he was not a redneck by any stretch. He was a soft-spoken, thoughtful guy who lived in a rural area so he could live and work in privacy and around nature.
All the same, thanks for your words. He is very missed. Rest in peace.