Farewell, Catholic Boy

Poet, musician, addict Jim Carroll, best known for his lacerating tome "The Basketball Diaries" passed away on 9/11 in Manhattan from a heart attack. He was 60. His death is poignant for many reasons, but most interestingly, it adds another verse to his 1980 cult hit "People Who Died".

That song, from the album Catholic Boy, breathlessly chronicles a series of Carroll's friends who died in sometimes rather grisly fashions.

Teddy sniffing glue he was 12 years old

Fell from the roof on East 2-9

Kathy was 11 when she plugged the plug

On 26 reds and a bottle of wine

Bobby had leukemia 14 years old

He looked like 55 when he died

He was a friend of mine....

Now Carroll, whose life took him from being a star basketball player in high school (also chronicled, in addition to the aforementioned novel, as a 1995 film with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead) to light of the literary world (Kerouac, Bob Dylan, and Warhol were admirers), can be added to the list. I won't try to compose my own lyrics, but it wouldn't be too difficult. "People Who Died" was all over AOR radio in the early 80s, not too bad for something considered to be punk rock. I remember hearing it on K-102, a S. FL rock station. It depressed and exhilarated, and continues to do so. I always wanted Carroll to do a spare acoustic version, which would have been a nice companion piece/counterpoint to the frantic '80 tune. If such a version exists, I've yet to hear it. It would've been a fitting latter day re-examination. A mellowing, like age tends to do. R.I.P.