09.30.13
Heisenberg’s Swan Song
“Baby Blue,” an aching pop rock single that went to #14 in the USA in 1972, played in edited form at the close of Breaking Bad last night, was perfect. Right to its poignant rising final guitar flourish, so exquisitely compressed you hear string noise as the show fades to black, it’s a song that put to music loss, regret, and now — meth and death.
Badfinger was a tragedy. Despite singles success with Apple Records (Come and Get It, No Matter What, Day by Day and Baby Blue), the dissolution of the Beatles’ company and the withdrawal of a record from the American market seven weeks after release in 1974 left the band with no income. Despondent, Pete Ham — the voice of “Baby Blue,” committed suicide by hanging the same year.
Another bandmember, bassist Tom Evans, hung himself in 1983.
By tomorrow rock critics at all the on-line magazines will have picked over the song and the band, ruining it if you paid attention.