My favorite band of all time is Blind Melon. The lead singer, Shannon Hoon, was an amazing talent that died of an overdose way too fucking young. He died in my beloved city of New Orleans, on the tour bus. His voice, oh my god...it is really amazing. He was really amazing, and the band is really underrated.
There most popular song was "No Rain," but that is not the best example of their talent. All their albums are amazing, but Soup was my favorite. And my favorite song by the band is called "Lemonade." Hence, BMelonsLemonade.
For those of you who love music...check the band out. For those of you who know addiction, listen to the lyrics on Soup...they really slammed it home for me. Lemonade refers to my beloved city of New Orleans, which is where the band recorded the album. Shannon's lyrics, and his amazing voice always bring it home to me. He was truly amazing.
A sample of his words that many of you can relate to...
"Needle,
Fetal
Like someone's pouring warm gravy all over me
This synthetic therapy
Seems to be so unappealing
But, oh, what a feeling..."
I still love this band...more than any other. And so I honor them daily as BMelonsLemonade...
Tones of Home has always been my favorite. Too bad he died so young...
ReplyDeleteYou know what, I think Shannon would be very honored by this and I think he would like you if he would have had the chance to meet you.
ReplyDeleteI also loved him and thought he was brilliant and deep and had a quality of innocence or naivitte about him....not sure exactly how to describe it. It hurts very much to watch so many great talents fall into the hands of heroin and be choked to death by it.
I think one of my favorite music videos is when they did "Soup" live at Bonnaroo and Shannon was obviously high (he was wearing his girlfriends dress and hair barrette). So it was sad, but it was honest and it was in some way beautiful to me. I don't know exactly why.
PS it was not Bonaroo, it was Woodstock '94
ReplyDelete@Barb...I love that video footage! I am a sucker for a man with eyeliner, though. (Not only did he have the dress and barrettes, he had on eyeliner.) I was actually there that day, and I met him that weekend! He was on acid most of that festival. My favorite video clip is done at an MTV stage, right out of rehab. He does the song Lemonade, and he is clean, and he is really, really on. I have a old VHS tape of the band called "Letters of a Porcupine." If you can get ahold of that, you should check it out. The footage of that Lemonade is on there, as well as the Woodstock footage, and also some footage of him doing "Dumptruck" where he is obviously loaded on heroin. It is really sad to watch him in both states in the same sitting. There is such a vast difference, and each state of mind is beautiful, it its own right. But when he was clean and fresh out rehab, he was just sooooo on fire. He looked happy. The band was ecstatic. It is a really great representation of how one person can have two completely different personas, based on substance use. I think you would enjoy the video...
ReplyDeleteThey are a great brand. What happened to Shannon was heartbreaking.
ReplyDelete