"And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again..."

January 16, 2016 6:36 PM

The passing of the Thin White Duke has me mulling over last works and final days. What other artists made work about the premonition of death?

Bowie's album Blackstar has been called a "swan song" and "parting gift." I'm thinking also of Beethoven's Große Fuge, Duchamp's Étant Donnés and Basquiat's Riding with Death & Eroica I.

posted by fritillary to Media & Arts (25 answers total)

There's a lot of art about death, did you mean those works which actually immediately preceded and contemplated the death of the artist?

If so: Ready to Die by Biggie.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:41 PM on January 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Not sure if this counts, but Bill Monroe wrote "My Last Days on Earth" while being treated for colon cancer. He would go on to live over a decade longer, but is one hell of a song to play at your memorial.
posted by selfnoise at 6:41 PM on January 16, 2016

Warren Zevon
posted by Knappster at 6:43 PM on January 16, 2016 [12 favorites]

Schubert's last piano sonata is often discussed in this light. Here's an article I found that goes into some detail.
posted by matildaben at 6:43 PM on January 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

John Donne's sermon, Death's Duel, was delivered to King Charles I a few days before Donne's death. Everyone there knew Donne was dying.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:48 PM on January 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Mozarts Requiem, according to probably apocryphal accounts, was supposedly written for himself.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:50 PM on January 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Yes, late works about the death of the artist!
posted by fritillary at 6:52 PM on January 16, 2016

"When I have Fears that I May Cease to Be" by Keats
posted by thetortoise at 6:59 PM on January 16, 2016

I don't know if "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" would count, since Blind Lemon Jefferson probably didn't know he would die that soon? But here it is.
posted by thetortoise at 7:15 PM on January 16, 2016

Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion
Andrei Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice
posted by Awkward Philip at 7:34 PM on January 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Derek Jarman's Blue
posted by coleboptera at 7:47 PM on January 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt" counts. Even if he didn't write the song, the video is clearly about an old man who knows he doesn't have much time left.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:34 PM on January 16, 2016 [6 favorites]

Author Robert Jordan wrote the final book of The Wheel of Time knowing he had amyloidosis. The first and final scenes (of what would become a three-volume finale) revolve around themes of duty, fighting an implacable foe, and finding freedom after perishing in the defeat of said foe.
posted by greenland at 9:04 PM on January 16, 2016

Clive James is terminally ill but still alive (seemingly to his own astonishment as much as anyone else's) and has been writing poetry from that perspective.
posted by coleboptera at 11:14 PM on January 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

Some of Jeff Buckley's songs talk about him dying. I can't remember which one, but one even talks about drowning (which I think is how he eventually died).
posted by glitter at 4:27 AM on January 17, 2016

Nick Drake's 'Black Eyed Dog' was one of the last things he ever recorded. He was dead from an overdose 6 months later.
posted by oh pollo! at 5:50 AM on January 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

Bob Fosse more or less predicted his own death with the great All That Jazz
posted by cakelite at 8:11 AM on January 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yeats, arguably.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 9:13 AM on January 17, 2016

You might check out the book Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death .

Example poem, by Oto:

At night my sleep
embraces the summer shadows
of my life.
posted by gudrun at 10:05 AM on January 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

Strauss' Four Last Songs might also fit into this category.
posted by Fiorentina97 at 1:02 PM on January 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: These are great! Thanks all. Keep 'em coming
posted by fritillary at 4:37 PM on January 17, 2016

François Villon wrote his Balade des pendus while waiting to be executed (he ultimately ended up being reprieved).
posted by irrelephant at 8:08 PM on January 17, 2016

I keep remembering more:
The Joy of Living by Ewan MacColl (song)
A New Path to the Waterfall by Raymond Carver (book of mostly poetry)
Les Marquises by Jacques Brel (album)
posted by coleboptera at 9:16 PM on January 17, 2016

Closer by Joy Division is inextricably linked to Ian Curtis' suicide which occured two months prior to its release.
posted by cacofonie at 7:10 AM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

Pretty much Gustav Mahler's entire output, but the 9th symphony, his last complete work, is especially explicit.
posted by knuspermanatee at 12:42 PM on January 18, 2016