Death. It looms large and is frightening in it's ability to loom larger and even larger with each passing day. It is pervasive. Duh! We take it for granted. Duh! But seriously, it does seem like we subconsciously marginalize it, perhaps in an effort to cope with the magnitude of fear and uncertainty that is a common denominator of all mankind...let me be clear, I understand that many people have found ways to conquer what I would consider the "fear" of death. I'm sure they would feel insulted by my suggesting that we all, alike, are terrified by it. Still, I have not met a man yet who could tell me that he wasn't afraid of death in his final moment.
But back to what I was saying. We marginalize it. We trivialize it. We compartmentalize it. Anything we can do to not have to face it's reality. Our language is filled with metaphors & colloquialisms that reduce it to an impotent word in a throwaway phrase: "Dude, I'm gonna KILL you!" "I love you to death." "Meryl, that dress is TO DIE FOR!" "Dead ahead". "I'm just DYING to meet you!" "I listened to Rush Limbaugh's show yesterday and there must have been at least ten minutes of DEAD AIR during the commercial breaks," "Urgh! Your breath smells like death!" "Jimbo, you're so funny! You SLAY me!" "You gotta love Jerry Lee Lewis! He's 'The Killer'!" "I just died in your arms tonight." "Dead heat". "What a great performance, Mr. Cobain! You KILLED it!" "Turn me on, dead man."
We watch movies that depict death and dying in the most realistic manner and it doesn't affect us one bit. I'm not talking about the "Saving Private Ryan"s or the "Schindler's List"s. I mean "Dawn of the Dead". "Day of the Dead". Night of the Living Dead". "The Evil Dead". "Dead and Buried". "Diary of the Dead". "Braindead". "House or the Dead". "Zombie Strippers". "All You Need is Brains". "Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies"....in fact, the pervasiveness of Zombies is so prevalent in this day and age that I could write a whole 'nother article about it ("All You Zombies" by the Hooters, "Zombie" by the Cranberries and/or Fela Kuti, whichever way your taste lies, the television series "The Walking Dead"...the possibilities are endless).
Nevertheless there are times we are forced to take it seriously. An attentive viewing of Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" is a sobering experience. How can you listen to "Love Will Tear Us Apart", knowing that the composer killed himself, without being just a little bit spooked? You watch "The Crow" and you can't help but find yourself super-attentive to the scene where Brandon Lee gets killed, and it actually disappoints you to learn that the actual killing was cut out of the film. As a child you are fascinated and repulsed by the "Faces of Death" video, watching it becomes a reluctant rite of passage. You may even feel cheated when you find out, as you get older, that the vast majority of stuff in that film is staged, faked, bogus.
You wonder...even as we minimalize it, even as we fear it, we are compelled to "look it in the eye". To perhaps place our own individual existences within the context of the Greater Reality.
At any rate, the two videos I wish to share are about as somber a rumination on the Grim Reaper's handiwork as any I've ever seen. The first one is by the Dave Matthews Band, an original song called "Gravedigger". Though I'm not much of a DMB fan, I will confess to liking this song. It is a relentless comment on death's indifference. It claims the guilty and the innocent alike. It could care less about justice.
The second one is Willie Nelson's cover of the same song. Where Matthews version was frightening, Nelson's is creepy and spooky. All the more so since much of it takes place at "his" gravesite. Willie almost seems to be taunting his fate with quirky facial expressions that verge upon the bizarre. He sings the song very well, with his typical warbling voice. This is another aspect that sets it apart from the Matthews original, which has quite the defiant tone to it. Willie's, on the other hand, is one of acceptance and certainty.
Decide for yourself which is the better of the two. You don't have to watch them in order.
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