Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn.

This one's gonna hurt when it happens, actually it hurts now. Outside of the fact he writes some of the best darkly humorous lyrics out there, he wrote the closest thing I've ever found to a perfect song. (See MattB's weblog from last month) When he goes, I'll probably sit down and play The Indifference of Heaven a couple of times.

If nothing else, he's written his own epitaph or he's trumped P. T. Barnum and written his own obit. His last two albums really summed it up. Life'll Kill Ya, and My Ride's Here. "It has to happen to the best of us." "Requiescat in pace, that's all she wrote." I can only hope he goes into it with these sensibilities intact.

If you want a one stop summary of his work and life, look here. But ignore all the generational analysis bull. The lyrics tell the better tale, the truer, darker, more painful and funnier one.