Curses and Music 1: The 27 Curse and Amy Winehouse

'Hello! My name is Buffy. Ask me about curses.'

- Buffy the Vampire Slayer,  episode 1, Season 6

Welcome to Buddha's Black Dog, my blog on curses and spells: for what it's about  (and my other blogs).  see 

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html

Buddha's Black Dog is  organised thematically, and older posts will be linked to  after each post.

The singer- songwriter Amy Winehouse died on 23 July 2011 at the age of 27 - a huge loss not just for her family but for music. There is little doubt that she was one of the great jazz-soul singers of her generation. The obituaries for her made much of the fact that she died at 27, thus joining the so-called '27 Club' - victims of the Curse of 27, a belief that 27 is an especially unlucky number as several well-known musicians (and entertainers) have died at that age including

Jim Morrison

Brian Jones

Jimi Hendrix

Janis Joplin

Kurt Cobain

See the wiki entry for '27 Club which lists the famous (and not so famous) musicians  who died at at the age of 27 -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27_Club

In fact,  dying in  your late 20s is not that uncommon if you have spent 10 years or so abusing your body with drink and drugs. As the mag The Stylist points out -

http://www.stylist.co.uk/people/the-27-club#image-rotator-4

'There is some scientific evidence to suggest that turning 27 can mark a turbulent time for people, with the brain going through some bizarre transformations at that age. "The prefrontal cortex of the brain [the part involved with judgement] does not finish developing until people are 25-27," say neuroscientist and psychiatrist Dr Daniel G Amen, author of the book Magnificent Mind At Any Age. "In your 20s, a process called 'myelination' occurs, where nerve cells become wrapped by myelin to provide insulation. If you disrupt this process, with drink or drugs, you're going to be more vulnerable to depression and compulsive actions."

"Rock stars spend a lot of time inside as they can't go out and be recognised," adds Amen. "This causes low vitamin D levels, which makes them more vulnerable to depression. If you have a confluence of all this, combined with drink/drugs, then trouble can brew.

Se also this very useful site for statistical analysis of the '27 Club' phenomernon -

http://preview.tinyurl.com/3rjfzep

It does indeed look as if 27 is a bad year for musicians.

PREVIOUS POSTS

INTRODUCTION

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html

ANCIENT CURSES 1: the Curse of Akkad

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/06/ancient-curses-1-curse-of-akkad.html

ANCIENT CURSES 2: Otzi the Ice Man

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/07/ancient-curses-2-otzi-ice-man.html

ANCIENT CURSES 3: Egyptian Curses

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/07/ancient-curses-3-egyptian-curses.html

CURSES THAT WORKED 1: the Curse of Shakespeare's Tomb 

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/06/curses-that-worked-1-curse-of.html

My other blogs are

A Glasgow Album - a photoblog drifting in a melancholy manner around the city

http://glasgowalbum.blogspot.com/

and

 http://parkeddogs.blogspot.com

a series of photographs of dogs tied up outside shops and other places (not too melancholy)

Ancient Curses 3: Egyptian Curses

'Hello! My name is Buffy. Ask me about curses.'

- Buffy the Vampire Slayer,  episode 1, season 6

Welcome to Buddha's Black Dog, my blog on curses and spells: for what it's about  (and my other blogs).  see 
 

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html

Buddha's Black Dog is  organised thematically, and older posts will be linked to  after each post.

        

Hollywood and popular fiction have a great time with Egyptian curses; the one thing everyone knows about Egyptian tombs is that they are best left undisturbed. Lord Carnarvon, for example, led the expedition that discovered Tutankhamun's tomb in Egypt's 'Valley of the Kings' in 1922, and the boy king's  fabulous grave goods; unfortunately there was an ancient curse associated with the tomb to discourage graverobbers, and Carnarvon died a few months after the tomb was finally opened in February 1923.

However, his co-excavator, Howard Carter, who did most of the work and opened the tomb personally, and was the first person (for millenia) to see Tutankhamun's sarcophagus, live happily until 1939 dying at the age of 64 (and is buried in Putney). The majority of the expedition members, indeed, lived normal spans. There was no curse, and in fact, robbers have been merrily plundering Egyptian tombs for thousands of years. In the Middle Ages, mummies were collected and shredded for their presumed medicinal value.

The first Hollywood movie about mummies to make a big impact was The Mummy (1932), with the great Boris Karloff playing the mummy, but there had been several preceding silent films that dealt with the subject, a notable example being Vengeance of Egypt (1912), which involves Napoleon, a stolen ring and a mummy with glowing eyes. As Michael Delahoyde has pointed out (see www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/mummy), such tales go back into the depths of the 19th century - they probably reflect some sort of colonial tension regarding the mysteries of the colonised in general, as well as that of Egypt in particular. The tales could be used for comic effect, as in Edgar Allan Poe's short story (of 1845!), 'Some Words with a Mummy', but we are now habituated to mummies being menacing instead of a source of laughs (and doubtful remedies).

See What the Past Did for Us (2004), Adam Hart-Davis, for a brusque dismissal of the 'ancient curse' myth.

PREVIOUS POSTS

INTRODUCTION
http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html 

ANCIENT CURSES 1: the Curse of Akkad
http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/06/ancient-curses-1-curse-of-akkad.html

ANCIENT CURSES 2: Otzi the Ice Man

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/07/ancient-curses-2-otzi-ice-man.html

CURSES THAT WORKED 1: the Curse of Shakespeare's Tomb 
http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/06/curses-that-worked-1-curse-of.html
My other blogs are

A Glasgow Album - a photoblog drifting in a melancholy manner around the city

http://glasgowalbum.blogspot.com/

and

 http://parkeddogs.blogspot.com

a series of photographs of dogs tied up outside shops and other places (not too melancholy)

Ancient Curses 2: Otzi the Ice Man

'Hello! My name is Buffy. Ask me about curses.'

- Buffy the Vampire Slayer,  episode 1, Season 6

Welcome to Buddha's Black Dog, my blog on curses and spells: for what it's about  (and my other blogs).  see  

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com

Buddha's Black Dog is  organised thematically, and older posts will be linked to  after each post.

The discovery of a well-preserved Neolithic body in the Alps in 1991 caused a wholly justified sensation. 'Otzi' as he was dubbed, had been in a glacier since around 3300 BC, and was well-equipped for survival. He had tools for fire-making, dried fruit, and had sophisticated weapons including a yew bow, and was seen at first as a shepherd or hunter, or possibly travelling trader. At least one journalist wrote a charming portrait of Otzi as an early European citizen, dying of hypothermia while making his way between peaceful communities.

Bizarre rumours about Otzi's madly hypothesized sexuality began almost immediately after his dicovery. He was said to be homosexual; he had no penis, he was a castrated priest or shaman. His sperm was was supposed to be still viable, and Austrian women supposedly made enquiries about how to be impregnated by him. None of this was made any sort of sense of course but was indicative of a widespread need to make sense of someone transplanted (even as a corpse) into modernity from the Neolithic.

Otzi became a fantasy figure of Euro solidarity, of a harmonious Europe: he was portrayed in numerous articles as the symbol of a Europe without boundaries, a peaceful wanderer through peaceful communities. 

Two years after his discovery, however, someone finally noticed that Otzi had an arrowhead embedded in him. Suddenly we knew how Otzi died. The arrow had hit close to his lungs, shattered his shoulderblade and he had bled to death within hours. DNA evidence from his arrowheads and dagger confirmed he had been in a deadly struggle with others  (his arrows had DNA from two people).

In 2005, newspaper reports started mentioning a so-called 'Otzi curse',  in the grand old tradition of 'mummy' curses - see Ancient Curses, .

By the end of 2005, the BBC was reporting 'speculation' about a 'curse' and saying that seven people connected with the discovery of Otzi had died in 'unclear' circumstances. Quite why the BBC felt it should report such matters in such a manner is another and sadder story, but certainly there is no mystery about people dying (one of the 'mystery' deaths was of a climber caught in an 'unexpected' blizzard). And there are dozens if not hundreds of people  connected with Otzi's discovery who are alive and well, indeed in some cases litigating - there are various claimants to being the true finder of Otzi.
 

See www.mummytombs.com, and The Prehistory of Sex (1996), Timothy Taylor.

PREVIOUS POSTS

INTRODUCTION
http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html

ANCIENT CURSES 1: the Curse of Akkad
http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/06/ancient-curses-1-curse-of-akkad.html
CURSES THAT WORKED 1: the Curse of Shakespeare's Tomb  
http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/06/curses-that-worked-1-curse-of.html


My other blogs are

A Glasgow Album - a photoblog drifting in a melancholy manner around the city

http://glasgowalbum.blogspot.com/

and

 http://parkeddogs.blogspot.com/

a series of photographs of dogs tied up outside shops and other places (not too melancholy)