Ginger Baker Is Gone
Ginger, Ginger,
why did you have to die?
Yes, I know, it is a foolish question,
people die, that is all,
there is nothing to be done…
But I was left open-mouthed;
I was listening to Joni’s Borderline
and, by a morbid coincidence,
reading an online newspaper where they said
you had crossed the final frontier.
Yes, the very last one.
I went straight to your website
and it seemed to be true:
there you were, an angel,
against a black background,
with white wings and all,
smoking a little cigarette,
on the prophetic cover of Hellraiser,
your 2010 autobiography.
Then I confirmed the sad news in Rolling Stone,
through Andy Greene’s article:
“Ginger Baker, Cream Co-Founder Redefined Rock Drumming, Dead at 80”.
Damn it!, I thought,
another giant passing into the beyond.
And a drummer too, a field with so few true geniuses.
They say that, like you, there were only Charlie Watts and Mitch Mitchell.
Well, of course, they forgot John Bonham,
Keith Moon, Steve Gadd, Phil Collins,
Carl Palmer and Danny Seraphine,
and a few others besides,
even poor Ringo, always so unfairly treated.
But to me, you stood above them all.
You were not a drummer — you were the drums,
the iconoclastic rumble of thunder,
the precise tick-tock of a clock,
the measured unfolding of waves upon the shore,
the sound of washing hanging out, snapping in the wind.
Now, you have died,
and with you, definitively, Cream and Blind Faith.
Your Air Force are gone,
your rigorous beat has ended,
intelligent, unique.
The drumsticks have fallen silent,
the brushes,
the cymbals,
and the bass-drum pedal.
Still, we have the records,
which is no poor consolation.
Going Back Home, my favourite,
where you spoke out for East Timor,
trampled beneath the Indonesian boot.
That is it!... I shall put it on to spin.
Let us begin at the beginning: Rambler.
And peace to your soul,
Peter Edward “Ginger” Baker.
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