From Ian to Debbie ♥

I wish I were a Warhol silk screen

Hanging on the wall

Or little Joe or maybe Lou

I’d love to be them all

All New York City’s broken hearts

And secrets would be mine

I’d put you on a movie reel

And that would be just fine”

—

St Valentine’s Day poem

from Ian to Debbie, 1973

Someone dressed in my skin...

I dont want to be in a band anymore. 

Unknown pleasure was it. 

I was happy. 

I never meant for it to grow like this.

 When i’m up there, singing…

they dont understand how much i give. 

And how it affects me. 

Now they want more. 

They expect me to give more.

 And i dont know if i can. 

It’s like it’s not happening to me, 

but…someone pretending to be me, 

someone dressed in my skin

Yes, he really had done it...

I stared at him, he was so still.

 Then the rope - I hadn’t noticed the rope. 

The rope from the clothes rack was around his neck. 

I ran through to the sitting room and picked up the telephone. 

No, supposing I was wrong - another false alarm. 

I ran back to the kitchen and looked at his face - 

a long string of saliva hung from his mouth. 

Yes, he really had done it. 

What to do next? 

I looked around the room expecting to see 

Ian standing in a corner watching my reaction. 

My instinct that he was playing a cruel trick

I believe Ian chose his deadline

I believe Ian chose his deadline. 

It was important to keep up the charade in front 

of the band in case they tried to dissuade him. 

The only reason he was no longer worried about 

the American trip was because he knew that...

 he wasn’t going

Gentleness and thoughtful sincerity

People who knew Ian remember him for his gentleness and thoughtful sincerity. Possessions never really meant a great deal to him and, although his passion lay with buying records, once the shine had worn off he would be amenable to lending or giving them away. He was generous to a fault and it seemed to give him much pleasure

Existence.

Existence.

Well, what does it matter?

I exist on the best terms I can.

The past is now part of my future.

The present is well out of hand...

He’s dancing really great...

I saw three attacks and it was always two-thirds of the way through a set. And it came to a point where in the last year, you’d watch the group and suddenly you’d feel Ian may be dancing great and suddenly he’s dancing really great. Hooky and Barney would be looking nervously at the stage and you could see what was going through their minds. So I always presumed that it wasn’t because he wasn’t taking the tablets, but that he wasn’t taking enough. For something was happening within a set, doing what he did, that actually took him to that point, that actually overcame the drugs and made him have the attack

He killed himself on Saturday night...

He killed himself on Saturday night.

 I couldn’t believe it. 

He must have been a pretty good actor. 

We didn’t have a bleeding clue what was going on. 

You tried to help him with your limited experience and 

you did what you could, but as soon as you left him he went back, 

you know?

I took it as a pinch of salt...

When he told me that he had no intention of living beyond his early twenties, I took it as a pinch of salt, assumed it was a phase and that he would grow out of it. 

He seemed terribly young to have already made the decision that life was not worth living

Love Will Tear Us Apart... @ CONTROL ♥