The list of 27 is key to the plot and has an iterative behind the scenes origin story worthy of its own blog post. Thankfully it’s pretty much the singular focus of this chapter, allowing time for a deep dive here.
My list twist was to originally have Local Boy (and by extension the reader) think the time travelers are targeting musicians, creating the 27 Club as they pick them off one by one. The reveal is they’re actually trying to rescue each and every one. Virtually all musicians die at 27 in the world of the story, but they’re setting right what once went wrong one life at a time. (Get it? They ain’t misbehavin’ because they’re the good guys…)
Back in 2010, my friend Gary Gunter and I collaborated on a beat sheet for a 27 Club themed screenplay. Gist was two friends go to a cool speakeasy for a 27th birthday featuring a jukebox with unreleased songs by members of the 27 club. They learn the jukebox can take them back in time, and they use it to try to save the 27s but fail. I don’t remember all the details of how this came to pass; I’m pretty sure the original idea was Gary’s and he invited me along for the ride. I do recall being the one to pitch “and the big twist at the end is the “Paul is dead” rumor was true, he did die at 27, and one of the friends from the bar is the Billy Shears who replaced him!”1
The idea petered out after our outline for reasons I also can’t completely recall, but the whole “Paul is dead was true” has always echoed in my brain for the last decade plus. I ran with it here — and kept running adding more and more 27 Club members who weren’t in our timeline. My one rule was I had to be able to plausibly explain why each person could have historic means to be a die at 27.
Billie Holiday was rumored to have a government hit placed on her due to performing “Strange Fruit.” 27 year old Sam Cooke survived a car crash that killed his driver and put Lou Rawls in a coma. Paul McCartney is quoted as saying he almost became a casualty of rock and roll during the dark times right after The Beatles split. David Bowie was a mess in his Ziggy Stardust days. Billy Joel has had a few near death experiences in car accidents and at least one suicide attempt. Rivers Cuomo’s depression after Pinkerton’s initial flop might’ve gone deeper. What if all of these things really happened?
Even though my rule was “plausible’ I still had some fun with it. There’s a scene in It Happened At The World’s Fair where 27 year old Elvis is kicked in the shin by a young Kurt Russell. What if it killed him in a freak accident? Britney Spears is targeted by so many tabloids another headline was easy to imagine. Flavor Flav wasn’t so much about a brush with death, but I liked the idea of the redhead being the one to give him his signature clock as a form of protection. What if the real Oasis shoe throwing incident only happened to prevent a tragic one a few years later that killed Guigsy by making him more alert for such a thing (or want to quit the band before it could happen)? And the wildest one, jointly inspired by the song “They Went Back In Time & Killed Robert Johnson” by Sananda Maitreya (formerly known as Terence Trent D’Arby): What if TTD was so upset over being mocked in “Lenny & Terence” by Carter USM that he went back in time to kill Jim Bob (aka James Robert Morrison, the other Jim Morrison) in the pre-Carter Jamie Wednesday days — only to have another time traveler stop him by having Jamie Wednesday cancel a gig and thus became the reason Carter USM formed? So realistic, sometimes this stuff writes itself!
The list went through a number of iterations over time. Musicians who almost made the cut included J. Mascis from Dinosaur Jr (I didn’t like having 2 in the same year and moved away from “stealing songs leads to death” as a theme), Madonna (mainly present just to make a dumb Madonna & Sistine quasi-religious joke), Lou Reed (setting up a tie-in with the novel Vicious), Elvis Costello (to pair a second King with the two Jim Morrison’s; Michael Jackson has him killed leaving the studio for calling James Brown & Ray Charles a racial slur), Michael Jackson (the infamous Pepsi commercial hair fire — but he was only 25 and it was in caused a paradox with him killing Costello), Alanis Morissette (choked on a jagged little pill), and BJ Barham from American Aquarium (Jason Isbell saved him in cahoots with the redhead after she helps him escape from the 400 unit of a certain time travel hospital; wish I found a way to keep this one).2
Unlisted Tidbits:
- Local Boy asks if he still has some of his 20 questions left. He actually asks 21 during the game in the previous chapter.
- “Billy Joel was either the greatest popular pianist of all time and/or the greatest baby grand salesman this side of Poughkeepsie. The dude oozed dangerous soft rock appeal.” The baby grand is a reference to a passing joke about Billy in Timely Persuasion. Dangerous soft rock appeal is said with pure respect. Also “Soft, loud, folk, soul—even if it’s Billy Joel—it’s still rock and roll…”
- The redhead says their visit to Kurt Cobain’s house was “putting on a show for your son’s benefit.” Previously she used the term “memories” in reference to what we think is time travel. Without getting overly explainy, the son still “remembered” Kurt’s death after he was saved due to this recreation orchestrated by the redhead. Memories usually adjust as the timeline changes, but the redhead knows a way to manipulate this.
- It’s confirmed here that Nelson is the stocky guy from Kurt Cobain’s house and he helped steal Billy Joel songs for his parents—implying that’s how they learned the other stolen songs. Why is still a full-on mystery; How is a partial one you have almost enough info to piece together as of the close of this chapter and will get the rest soon…
- Sometimes I wish I had even shorter chapters so this would be chapter 27, but other times I wish I had longer chapters and the entire book was 27 chapters as a thematic thing.3
Check Out Local Boy Done Gone
FOOTNOTES
- If you can’t save ’em, become one with ’em! ↩︎
- Richey Manic (aka Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers) is considered by many to be part of the real-life 27 Club list, but his body was never found and he’s officially only presumed dead. In my version he’s crossed off because the redhead took him to the future to start a new life, explaining why he’s “missing” from our perception. ↩︎
- Timely Persuasion has 26 chapters, each named for a song with a number in the title. 27 would’ve been “27 Jennifers” by Mike Doughty. ↩︎