It’s tough to lose a music artist who means a lot to you. It’s comforting to have their beautiful art as a reminder of their spirit, but sometimes those reminders can be a bit eerie.
In some cases, artists’ lives and careers end on a self-prophesying note, with their final albums leaving clues that death was just around the corner, including these three.
‘Grace’ by Jeff Buckley
Alt-rock singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley only released one album, Grace (1994). But that one album made a major impact on rock music. Certainly, his cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” has become the standard, but the album also featured tons of other high notes.
Sadly, Buckley died in 1997. He died while swimming in Wolf River Harbor, a tributary of the Mississippi River. Looking back, it’s fascinating that on his only record, he would deliver such a beautifully haunting cover of “Hallelujah”. A song that spends its nearly seven-minute runtime existentially reflecting on love and mortality.
Elsewhere in the album, Buckley sings about a “red-glitter coffin” (“Eternal Life”) and says so long to a lover in “Last Goodbye”.
‘American IV: The Man Comes Around’ by Johnny Cash
In 2002, a 70-year-old Johnny Cash released what would become one of his greatest albums of all time: American IV: The Man Comes Around. It was Cash’s sixty-seventh studio album, and the last to be released during his lifetime. Just under one year later, Johnny passed away.
It’s clear, when you go over the tracklist, that the country music legend knew his time was short. The opening title track is all about a biblical armageddon. There’s “Give My Love to Rose”, all about a dying man begging a stranger to make sure his final wishes are met. Hell, he even performs “Danny Boy”. That’s like the funeral song.
And all this isn’t even mentioning his cover of the Nine Inch Nails’ track “Hurt”. That song, all about regret when in Johnny’s hands, is one of the biggest songs of the 2000s. What a note that only The Man in Black could have gone out on.
‘One More Light’ by Linkin Park
So, real talk. I saved this for last, but it’s actually the first one I wrote, because I’m obsessed with this record. And the fact that Chester Bennington died by suicide just one month after the release of One More Light is a huge reason why.
I love Chester Bennington. His death was an absolutely devastating moment for me and millions of other millennials who grew up finding solace in Linkin Park’s songs and Chester’s lyrics. He was able to put words to feelings that we could identify but not articulate, and that visibility was priceless.
When One More Light came along, it was a controversial album. The band seemed to trade their nu-metal sound for a more pop-rock vibe. Personally, I never had an issue with this. I thought (and still think) it was brilliant.
Lyrically, Bennington wrote only two songs, “Heavy” and “Halfway Right”, but some moments became tragic in the wake of his passing. For example, on the album’s opener, “Nobody Can Save Me”, Chester sings, “I chose a false solution, but nobody proved me wrong.”
Then there’s “One More Light”, the heartbreaking title track. “Who cares if one more light goes out? Well, I do,” Chester sings on the melancholy tune. I swear to god I still can’t listen to this song without crying.
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