Chuck Berry’s death marked the passing of one of the architects of 20th-century American culture. But what we lost in living rock ’n’ roll legends, we gained in Twitter jokes.
But for more than a few who came to the news through social media, it was also a moment of profound revelation.
Granted, it’s possible many, even most people hadn’t spared a thought in years for Buckcherry, the Anaheim, California, quintet who cracked the Billboard top 10 with “Sorry” in 2007. They also scored a 2006 Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance with “Crazy Bitch,” a song that, according to Wikipedia, “was inspired by the band’s own past with those they deemed ‘crazy bitches.’ ” But though the band apparently insisted, perhaps for legal reasons, that their name was inspired by a drag queen of their acquaintance and not by the singer of “Johnny B. Goode,” Berry’s death nonetheless caused interest in Buckcherry to soar.
Suddenly, it was all horribly clear.
Inevitably, some of that shock turned to anger—or maybe it was just bargaining.
Perhaps instead of wishing death on an innocent—if terrible—band, we can just agree on this.
