I actually think, as I’ve said repeatedly, that he’s the only “elder statesman” of rock who consistently produced great music in the 21st century, so many decades after first becoming famous in the 1970s. In most cases, if you sample a later-period Stones or McCartney record for instance, it might be moderately listenable or it might be really crappy, but Petty’s stuff was still great even long after it stopped making a splash on the charts, on the radio, or in the culture.
Drad dog obviously disagrees, and that is his/her right; but was it really necessary to make this assertion in an RIP thread?
To most of the people I know, Petty was some guy who played some songs they probably heard of. For whatever reasons, Tom’s music meant a lot more to me…I can’t say how many hours of pleasure I’ve gotten from listening to his recorded works and attending his live performances.
What makes it especially sad for me is knowing he was in severe pain on the last tour because of a fractured hip. Watching the clip of American Girl from his last performance he looks, to my eye, fragile as hell. Apparently he didn’t want to treat his injury and have to reschedule shows and disappoint the fans. He didn’t owe us that at all.
I listened to Wildflowers while making my usual Saturday morning pancake breakfast this morning. What a great album.
I’m sad that I never got to see him in concert. I tried to gather a group of friends to go when his 2008 tour was passing through the city where I lived at the time, but nobody else wanted to go. Losers!
What could they have done to relieve pain instead of increasing opioids? Was there some surgery, support or some other medication which was less likely to result in overdose? Can people kinda function on doses of CBD or ketamine high enough to dull that kind of pain?
That mix of drugs is dangerous, but not an automatic death sentence for everyone. Some folks with tolerance skate by death daily while taking that combo. Mixing benzos with opioids is very high risk, of course. I suspect those fentanyl variations may be metabolites of fentanyl rather than representing an additional drug ingestion. But taking oxycodone and fentanyl along with two different benzos is stacking risk on top of risk.
Citalopram is an SSRI of course, and probably didn’t contribute too much to the demise. Probably.
Local/Regional pain blocks, TENS units, meditation/relaxation therapy, NSAIDs like ibuprofen or meloxicam, acetaminophen, all could have played some role in reducing pain levels. Even pot might have helped, though studies hint that it may be much less helpful for acute bone pain. But pain’s a bitch to treat sometimes.
