A Good Way to Go

On the day that Tom Stoppard is quoted as saying: “I have a spasm of envy for the person who was killed by a falling bookcase- it would be a good way to go. You went when you were in a good frame of mind and you were doing something pleasant and interesting”, the news has come in that Mike Edwards, a founder member of ELO, has been killed by a one ton bale of hay, which fell on his head, killing him instantly. 

This is a very rock and roll way to go in the 21st century, as most rock stars turn to farming or gardening once they have made their pile. But people of our generation will always hanker after the glamourous way to go, as written about by Roger McGough in the sixties in his poem “Let Me Die a Youngman’s Death”, of which these are the first and last verses:

Let me die a youngman’s death
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death
​
Let me die a youngman’s death
Not a free from sin tiptoe in
Candlewax and waning death
Not a curtains drawn by angels borne
‘what a nice way to go death’