…Good Friends We’ve Lost…
- Kristin Kowalski Ferragut
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
This morning I found out that Joe Ely died through a Facebook post by Thomas Anderson. If you don’t follow Thomas Anderson, I strongly suggest you start. I learn more from his posts, always written with humor and insight, than most media. I wrote a blogpost about his music, a bit of a meta review, back in 2022, What on Earth’s Coming Next?... worth checking out. I hope to interview him in my new songwriter series in 2026. But he’s not my topic today. Thank God. He’s still alive.
In light of the news of Joe Ely’s passing, I pivot from my original plan to nod to some greats we’ve lost in 2025. As happens, the losses are assorted through a variety of talents including important figures — Tom Robbins, Jane Goodall, Val Kilmer, Tom Stoppard, Diane Keaton, Pope Francis… all of whom deserve attention. But for the purposes of this post, I’ll stick to sharing work from a non-exhaustive list of poets and musicians lost, and include a few personal reflections.
Jimmy Cliff’s music lives so deep in my core that sometimes I’m already signing his songs before I realize I’m doing so. I’m not sure when and where I first experienced his music, but for the past 30 years, it’s provided me comfort and inspiration.
Paul Durcan
Wife Who Smashed Television Gets Jail
'She came home, my Lord, and smashed in the television;
Me and the kids were peaceably watching Kojak
When she marched into the living room and declared
That if I didn't turn off the television immediately
She'd put her boot through the screen;
I didn't turn it off, so instead she turned it off -
I remember the moment exactly because Kojak
After shooting a dame with the same name as my wife
Snarled at the corpse - Goodnight, Queen Maeve -
And then she took off her boots and smashed in the television;
I had to bring the kids round to my mother's place;
We got there just before the finish of Kojak;
(My mother has a fondness for Kojak, my Lord):
When I returned home my wife had deposited
What was left of the television into the dustbin,
Saying - I didn't get married to a television
And I don't see why my kids or anybody else's kids
Should have a television for a father or mother,
We'd be much better off all down in the pub talking
Or playing bar-billiards -
Whereupon she disappeared off back down again to the pub.'
Justice O'Brádaigh said wives who preferred bar-billiards to
family television
Were a threat to the family which was the basic unit of society
As indeed the television itself could be said to be a basic unit of
the family
And when as in this case wives expressed their preference in
forms of violence
Jail was the only place for them. Leave to appeal was refused.
Thoman Sayers Ellis
All Their Stanzas Look Alike
All their fences
All their prisons
All their exercises
All their agendas
All their stanzas look alike
All their metaphors
All their bookstores
All their plantations
All their assassinations
All their stanzas look alike
All their rejection letters
All their letters to the editor
All their arts and letters
All their letters of recommendation
All their stanzas look alike
All their sexy coverage
All their literary journals
All their car commercials
All their bribe-spiked blurbs
All their stanzas look alike
All their favorite writers
All their writing programs
All their visiting writers
All their writers-in-residence
All their stanzas look alike
All their third worlds
All their world series
All their serial killers
All their killing fields
All their stanzas look alike
All their state grants
All their tenure tracks
All their artist colonies
All their core faculties
All their stanzas look alike
All their Selected Collecteds
All their Oxford Nortons
All their Academy Societies
All their Oprah Vendlers
All their stanzas look alike
All their haloed holocausts
All their coy hetero couplets
All their hollow haloed causes
All their tone-deaf tercets
All their stanzas look alike
All their tables of contents
All their Poet Laureates
All their Ku Klux classics
All their Supreme Court justices
Except one, except one
Exceptional one. Exceptional or not,
One is not enough.
All their stanzas look alike.
Even this, after publication,
Might look alike. Disproves
My stereo types.
Joe Ely’s music lived prominently for me in the 90’s. His romantic and sometimes funny story songs set the vibe for late night visits with friends and kept me company for hours on the road. For the last couple of decades, revisiting his music has provided me comfort like coming home.
This song was written by Butch Hancock. Joe Ely’s lyrics are great, but since I feel like hearing this version of this song — so pretty — it’s what I’m sharing.
Marianne Faithful
Roberta Flack I don’t think there were any Roberta Flack albums in my house growing up. But the ‘70’s were mostly about radio and, as I take a tour of her playlist, I’m transported back and think it’s fair to say I grew up on her music.
Is anyone not moved by this song every time?
Connie Francis
Tony Harrison
Long Distance II
Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.
You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.
He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.
I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.
David Johansen
Ozzy Osbourne Life’s pretty great when you think about it, with 40 years of Ozzy love. A highlight of my summer was my class’s memorial party for Ozzy. His music still resonates.
Jill Sobule
I Kissed a Girl (predates Katy Perry’s same titled song)
Angie Stone
Mark Volman
Bobby Whitlock
Bryan Wilson
Peter Yarrow
Here’s a delightful video I just happened on from 2016 where Yarrow shares a musical intro that dispels the origin myths around Puff, the Magic Dragon. I grew up singing the original version at singalongs as long as I can remember.
Rest well and thanks for the good work. May your lives stand as inspiration for us all to really live.
ty for remembering their goodness ty