Goodbye, Ox

I didn't know John Entwistle had died until a friend e-mailed me the morning after it happened. "I guess this means there's not going to be a tour this summer," Steve's e-mail read, followed by several of those e-mail frowny faces. I instantly felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. I knew immediately that he was talking about the Who's impending tour; we had discussed meeting up at the Verizon Center when the band came to Indianapolis in August. We have never seen the Who together, Steve and I, even though we have been dedicated fans of the band since junior high school. Now that they were on tour again and we were both in Indiana, we were looking forward to the Indy show. But not anymore. Now that Entwistle -- the Who's influential bassist -- is dead, we just don't believe the Who exists anymore. In fact, we both kind of felt that the Who actually ended when drummer Keith Moon died in 1978, although the group continued playing together as a threesome: Entwistle, singer Roger Daltrey and guitarist Pete Townshend. It just wasn't the same without Moon's frenetic drumming. And now it's definitely over. But Entwistle's recent death -- from a heart attack at age 57 -- hit me even deeper than the disruption of the band's tour. That's because for the last 15 years, the Who have been my heroes -- a bunch of blokes who captured my imagination and helped me survive when I never thought I would make it. The Who have always been there: from the turmoil of adolescence, through the emotional whirlwind of college and now as I nervously and regretfully approach my 30th birthday. And out of all the men in the band, Entwistle was always my favorite. He was the eye of the storm -- the spot of tranquility at the center of a raging hurricane. While the other three members often lost control, both on and off stage, Entwistle consistently remained stoic and strong. While the others smashed their instruments or ended up in fistfights with each other, Entwistle -- known lovingly as "the Ox" by his fans -- just did his thing. And that thing was establish a style of and attitude toward bass playing that revolutionized the instrument and the way rock bands put together music. Perhaps only Parliament-Funkadelic's Bootsy Collins has had as much of an impact on rock bass as Entwistle did. But for me, the Ox was more than just a bassist. He also felt like a close friend, someone who somehow knew how I was feeling and had just the right thing to say. The songs he wrote were often macabre masterpieces, but he also wrote many tracks that were introspective and insightful songs filled with a dreamy sense of wonder and almost child-like appreciation for life and all the joys and sorrows that come with it. After hearing that the Ox had died, I could not help but think of his song "Heaven and Hell," in which he ruminates about the nature of life after death and the inevitability of our own mortality. After describing the two afterlife options, he sings wistfully, "Why can't we have eternal life, and never die?" John Entwistle was truly one of my heroes. I thought he would live forever, thought he would always be there to inspire me and to let me know that, although life might be tough at times, it's also a journey that we must make, like it or not. My favorite Entwistle song is one from 1971 called "When I Was a Boy." Now that he's gone, I am even more drawn to this song than ever before: When I was a baby, I hadn't a care in the world
But now I'm a man, the troubles fill my head.
When I was five, it was good to be alive
But now I'm a man, I wish that I were dead. When I was a boy, I had the mind of a boy
But now I'm a man, ain't got no mind at all.
When I was in my teens, I had my share of dreams
But now I'm a man, ain't got no dreams at all. My how time rushes by.
The moment you're born you start to die.
Time waits for now man, and your lifespan
Is over before it began. As I sit here at my window, my life comes back to me
It's been so long since the good days,
It's been so long.
And I count up all the wasted years,
the hopes and the fears, the laughs and the tears
and I wonder, I wonder,
I wonder what went wrong