Star men … David Bowie in 1974 and Glenn Frey of the Eagles in 1973. Photograph, Terry O’Neill | Hulton Archive | Getty Images | Rex Features

Last night, walking up 7th Ave around 40th Street I hear the last strains of “Witchy Woman” bouncing off the buildings. I follow the sound and trace it to a lone Asian man on the corner, wrapped in a blanket, rocking a Tibetan sort of hat and blaring the Eagles’ classic out from a big orange monitor on the curb. No cup, no begging–just reverence. ‪#‎greatmusicknowsnoboundaries‬ ‪#‎righton‬

 

Everett True The Guardian

Anyone who was defensive over the mass mourning of Bowie but laughed at the death of the Eagles member is a hypocrite.

I am not an Eagles fan. I know little of their output beyond the omnipresent Hotel California, Take It Easy, One of These Nights, Tequila Sunrise, and so forth. Their delivery is too laidback for me, too easygoing. Give me Neil Young any day. I do not deny their popularity, however – the album Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) alone has sold more than 42m copies – nor the fact that their music clearly means a great deal to a great many people. Like all music that has grown in stature over time, their songs come laden with associations – emotional, personal and communal – for the individuals concerned.A few days ago, their founding member Glenn Frey died.It is the third (or fourth, depending on how you view it) high-profile death to hit the rock world in the last few weeks. To a community mourning the passing of Motörhead’s Lemmy, and Mott the Hoople’s Dale Griffin, it feels like a particularly hard blow. Not for me, personally, but I certainly empathised with others’ sense of loss. Like a great many people, I suffered a profound feeling of shock and bereavement when Bowie died last week. Indeed, my Facebook feed has been swamped with talk about little else since. This grief has gone far beyond that of a “normal” star’s death; so much so that a few commentators have suggested it is in some way false, or that to cry in public is unseemly, which in turn prompted an outcry against this callousness and lack of empathy.This week, I have come across a new form of mourning. My Facebook feed has been peppered with jokes and comments from friends gloating over the death of Glenn Frey, rejoicing that the karmic balance of the world is being restored somehow. God took Bowie, but this is OK because God has also taken Frey. That strikes me as hypocritical and grossly insensitive. Many of these jokes came from the same people who were so worked up over a handful of others criticising their mourning of Bowie.

What is it about social media that brings out the mob mentality in people? What is it about social media that can make someone credibly claim to be distressed at being mocked for their (very public) grief, and then only a few days later turn around and mock others for feeling precisely the same about someone different? Your taste is your own, but that does not give you a licence to claim it is superior to someone else’s. Nor does it give you a licence to mock a sense of bereavement. Perhaps such “music fans” should remember the John Peel axiom of popular music: there is no such thing as good or bad music, only good and bad listeners.Frey wasn’t a Donald Trump or a Margaret Thatcher. He was a musician and songwriter, whose songs brought comfort and hope and dreams and solace to millions. The same as the songs of Lemmy and David Bowie and countless others did. You might not have liked these songs, but you could at the very least show the same respect towards his grieving fans as you have demanded from others.