Is Rock'n'Roll Suicide?

The recent suicide of Chris Cornell was an unpleasant jolt to the system. One can only imagine how his relatives and wife must be feeling. Fifty-two is too young to die.  

His wife has publically blamed the legally prescribed drugs he was taking. The medication. It was more than that. A potent cocktail of medication and psychosis may  have contributed to convince him that ending his life was the most meaningful way he could underpin any meaning he ascribed to his life and his art.

Recently, Tom Larkin of Shihad  pointed out that musicians tend to die on average at the age of fifty-seven.

A mixture of factors contributing to this; from alternative life-style choices the lack of ‘meaningful’ employment they appear to get, want, or need, and of course, temperament.

So what is up with these people? Are they musicians because they are misfits, or are they misfits because they are musicians?

Yes to both.

The generality tolerates musicians with bemused condescension, and the musician tends to return the favour. Which is kind of strange isn’t it? What is it about the latent power of music to turn people’s heads that encourages some to view musicians as some kind of oddity?

And what is it about musicians that causes them to feel isolated, alienated or else-wise, causes them to appear to relish being seen as isolated or alienated?

Is their impulse to create music a symptom of some kind of inner malaise or does the fact that they make music cause people to look at them as if there is something wrong with them?

Do musicians die younger, in general, than others who appear to have opted for a mainstream kind of life? 

And if so, why?

Written with deepest sympathy to his family.