Not to be morbid, but once last post on the death theme -- Joe Strummer's death a few years back hit me harder than any other celebrity death I can think of. Too young, and too good. (It was close to Christmas when I heard about it, and I happened to be visiting Vietnam about to visit Ho Chi Minh City, which only served to remind me of that song he wrote.)I had been loving his recent albums, and especially one song, "Bhindee Bhagee". It's about Joe's love for the international flavor of his neighborhood, which resonated with me as I was out really seeing the world for the first time, living as an expat.A friend was keeping a moderated writers blog at the time, where people would pick one song that meant something to them and write about it. I was going to pick this song. Then, this friend upped and died on me. That sucks.It weirded me out six months ago when a guy on a physics blog I read regularly wrote, out of the blue, a whole big blog entry about this very same song. The comment I put there in response sums up why I love the song:

What’s great about it, to me, is this: here’s a guy who’s seen it all; from punk roots, to international superstardom, to getting screwed over by his record company and not producing any albums for ten years as a result. He could’ve ended up jaded as hell. But as his recent work in general and this song in particular point out, he died in love with the world, and not just his corner of it. You could do worse in this life.

Seek out a proper version of this song -- but in the meanwhile, here's a slightly rough version from YouTube. The song actually starts a couple of minutes in.