I was driving home just now, mindless highway driving after a day of errands and tasks. Another bitter January day of the type that come in bunches when you couldn’t possibly feel further from the autumn left behind or the spring yet to come. Alone in my thoughts, Jenny at my side and my son asleep in the backseat, I’m staring at a dusky winter sky of deepening indigo and faint, spiritless orange. Watercolor patches of grey and muted purple clouds hang low above the horizon. Crossing over the Missouri, the scene framed by silhouettes of the black iron railroad bridge on my left and the black, leafless trees lining the bank on the far shore. The river below is mottled with ice, moving thick, slow and deliberate. In a wonder of timing, in that way that a song always seems to gut punch you at just the right moment as if divinely cued, a solemn piano followed by a mournful violin starts to play.

“Something has left my life,
And I don’t know where it went to, ah, ha, ha.
Somebody caused me strife,
And it’s not what I was seeking.

Didn’t you see me, didn’t you hear me?
Didn’t you see me standing there, ah, ha, ha?
Why did you turn out the lights?
Did you know that I was sleeping?

Say a prayer for me,
Help me to feel the strength, I did.
My identity, has it been taken?
Is my heart breakin’ on me?

All my plans fell through my hands,
They fell through my hands on me.
All my dreams it suddenly seems,
It suddenly seems,
Empty,”

Lyrics: Dolores O’Riordan, Music: O’Riordan/Noel Hogan

Crossing bridges, crossing rivers, days end; the metaphors are absurd and obscene in their emphatic insistence. Notice me, notice the transition, and notice the passing of time.

24 years ago I sat and listened to that same voice that was now repeating the haunting refrain; empty, empty, empty. I had the same girl by my side; we were 28, which must have made the young girl with the voice a mere 22. Dolores O’Riordan was her name and she could wail like a banshee or soothe the soul with a lilting lullaby. We were at Mississippi Nights, that wonderful, long gone venue, where we had seen so many great shows. I have told a story of that night for years. I have told it for so long now, that I’m not even sure any longer that the story is true but it is now become part of my internal folklore. As stories go, it is not much. We were sitting very near the stage, next to it really and with the house lights up before the show had even begun, the lovely young singer approached and made her way toward a narrow and short set of steps leading up onto the stage. As I recall it was an awkward path to navigate and I rose and offered my hand to steady her as she made her way up the steps. As any Irish gentleman would offer his hand to any Irish lass. That was the extent of our interaction, as I said, not much of a story. I’m not sure why my aging mind doubts the veracity of the tale as anyone who ever attended a show there could attest to the intimacy of the room. After all this is the same venue where Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze led the audience on a conga line dance round the joint during a boisterous rendition of Goodbye Girl. Also, the very same place where I sheepishly chatted with a completely unknown but unnervingly gorgeous Gwen Stefani as she signed my No Doubt cassette. The Cranberries opened the show on this particular night but we were all there to see them. Dolores was delightful and a joy to hear. She was sprightly and waifish but man could that girl sing, and I hate, as would anybody that ever heard her, that her voice is now silenced.

As we drove around town today we played the old Cranberries CDs and Jenny sang along and I listened to these lovely tunes, some of which I hadn’t heard for nearly twenty years. January is bleak and it feels like it will last forever. The first week of the year brought the loss of France Gall, the lovely French ingénue who sang those infectious and often suggestive French ditties while looking pure as the driven snow. She was 70 and cancer took her as it takes so many. The next week brought the loss of my favorite voice in a favorite band when Ray Thomas of the Moody Blues, the genial dad-like fixture throughout their greatest years, died at 76. He lived long enough to see his band inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but not long enough to attend the ceremony. We saw him many times in concert and he always appeared to be having the most fun of anyone in the band, an important but underrated quality. Dolores O’Riordan was 46 and died alone in a hotel room. What a stale and common death that is for a celebrity. Tragic, desperate and pitiless is the isolation of such a passing. I’m not sure why the death of one so young should make me feel so old but it does. Lord January needs to end! God Bless Dolores O’Riordan, when my time comes I hope you’re there to reach down and help me up that first step.