Music: Lyric Sheets: The Death of Keith Moon
Keith Moon of The Who, madcap and probably the best rock drummer ever, died 20 years ago this year. An in-depth book about him, Dear Boy, is due out in September.
I remember when he died because
The headline read:
Keith Moon ist Tot
And I came home from Germany
That autumn on my own
Across Westphalian countryside
The train I'd boarded trundled on
Through little towns and cabbage fields
And I had time to think:
I'd seen him several years before
One cold October on TV
I must have been thirteen or so
His band were in the charts
And what I noticed most of all
About this madman drummer was
The sheer defiant joy with which
He beat his kit on `I'm A Boy'
Hammering the hanging toms
Smashing seven colours
From the see-thru snare.
And all the time
Open mouthed with pilled-up eyes
He gurned and gestured
From the screen
While cymbals on the taut refrains
Sizzled like electric trains
A floor-tom like an oil tin
Brought the second chorus in.
I remember when he died because
The headline said
Keith Moon was dead.
And I came home from Germany
That autumn on my own.
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