The question
How close have you come to dying?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
A death threat at Glastonbury festival in 1989. The police told me not to go on, but I said I had to because I was headlining. So I wore a bullet-proof vest. It seemed unlikely that I would be assassinated, but it was shocking and very stressful.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 September 2017 source ↗
I choked on a hard-boiled lemon sweet when I was 13. My brother Sam saved me.
Rolling a quad bike.
Being driven across the Atlas Mountains in a snowstorm 25 years ago, by a local taxi driver who plainly put a lower premium on the advantages of living than me.
It is a very rare affliction. A GP would expect to meet it once in a career and this form of brain cancer is unpredictable and dangerous. Usually, this tumour might give you only a two-year span since its discovery. I have had two operations and one course of radiotherapy and now three chemotherapies (one currently starting). My death is, in a sense, imminent. I say to myself: I am dying. Something in my head is hurrying to kill me.
It feels like a yearning but also a kind of overwhelming glowing out.
I would have tried to meet Lou Reed backstage. I went to see him for years, and never tried to meet him. Eventually we met at award shows and did become friends.
An astronaut, a writer, a dancer.
How little money really changes things. It buys doctors but not health, clothes but not taste, makeup but not beauty. When I was young and didn’t have anything, I imagined money had more power.
There are a few. As far as getting started, lots of people who really want to make a song have figured that out already. I very rarely get asked for advice from people who have never written a song and want to know how to get started. It’s usually about getting stuck or feeling like they’ve painted themselves into a corner. I remember getting asked a question from this one kid who was probably 13 years old. He wanted to know if it was okay to always write in A minor. He liked writing classical piano pieces and his favorite key was A minor. My favorite key is also A minor, so he wanted to know if that was okay.
The most extravagant thing was a bottle of 1904 armagnac for $1,000. I spent $10,000 on a Martin guitar in the 90s. I also spent $100,000 on a Fairlight keyboard and I ended up giving it away. Oh well.
Ronnie Wood, Emeli Sandé, Liam Gallagher, Gary Numan, Kim Wilde, Elaine Paige
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