Neville Morley You can film the cross in glorious technicolour, silhouetted against the sunset to the accompaniment of handkerchiefs and the closing credits. Afterwards, there's just a body. A pretty unimpressive body, at that : sweat and muck deeply inlaid in the cracks of the skin, eyes rolled upward out of sight, a thin trail of dried vomit across one cheek. A poor constitution to start with, the coroner suggested, stretched to breaking point by neglect and exhaustion after so many years on the road. It hadn't taken much, in the end.
The human body can only take so much, it was just a matter of time. Officialdom shrugged and departed. It was a long time before anyone remembered to pull down his eyelids.
In certain cases, death is not necessarily the end.
Indeed, it can be a wise career move - and in his case, not a moment too soon. Fame and success had come quickly, perhaps too quickly. The backlash of public and critical opinion was goaded by envy and resentment. He had been seduced by the adoring crowd, he had suggested rampant megalomania. His PAGE 8 SPRING 1991 SEA OF FAITH MAGAZINE public behaviour had become eccentric and arrogant, even violent and paranoid. In the tabloids' eyes, he crossed the line between daring and depravity, darling and devil, and so they tore him down. The crowd drifted away in search of novelty.
A suitably tragic end, the necessary precursor to apotheosis. To have fallen so far from glory is part of the myth. Future worshippers must feel superior that they have recognised him whom the others deserted.
He should have had a better funeral - although for their sake it's better that he didn't. It was a dismal affair, a few die-hard fans glorying in the exhibition of their grief and the remaining members of the band squabbling over debts and royalties. The end of the story, to widespread relief.
In retrospect, of course, it's only the beginning. The story always ends there, because we know that it doesn't really end there. There is life, of a sort, after death. Success, in the end, justifies the tragedy and turns it instead into a strange victory. The myth itself is far less interesting than the process by which it became a myth. Plenty of people die : most stay dead.
Former members of the backing band, seeing the chance at long last to step into the limelight themselves, find instead that there's far more money to be made by peddling their association with his name. Up and coming stars quote him as a major influence and claim that his legacy continues. The back catalogue is reissued, obscure tracks are dug up from the archives, retrospective accounts are published by everyone with the slightest connection. The face broods from the walls of a thousand student bedrooms. His spirit lives on. You can present this as inevitable, afterwards.
To become an icon in the public domain, endlessly quoted, endlessly referred to, endlessly reproduced.
Endlessly exploited, in other words. He's dead, silent, safe. They can do what they like with him, use him as a mirror, form him as a god in their own image. What did he expect ? It seems churlish to complain that actually they've got it all completely wrong.
NEVILLE MORLEY is researching a PhD at Cambridge in the economy and society of the ancient city of Rome.