Mr. Write's Page

Jim Carroll, author, poet, and musician, lived the kind of life that might produce the song “People Who Died.”

Carroll never achieved huge fame, but he was one talented dude. Jack Kerouac said, “At 13 years of age, Jim Carroll writes better prose than 89 percent of the novelists working today.” William S. Burroughs called him a born writer. Patti Smith nudged him into a parallel career he never anticipated: front man for a punk rock band.

Carroll won accolades as a poet at age 13, and he also became a heroin addict. Through the 1960s, he was a fixture of the New York art and drug scene. He hung out with people like Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, and Lou Reed.

In the early 70s, Carroll moved to California to kick his drug habit. In 1978, he published “The Basketball Diaries,” an autobiography about his teen years in New York, when he was a sports star while simultaneously immersed in the drug culture.

In 1980, The Jim Carroll Band released its first album, “Catholic Boy.” On it was “People Who Died,” his best-known single.

Carroll continued to perform with the band and to write extensively. In 2009, at age 60, he died of a heart attack while working at his desk in Manhattan.

For a long time, I thought “People Who Died” was fictional — just a punk band using death, suicide, and drug references to sound hip.

But then I learned more about the life of Jim Carroll. Maybe the song isn’t fiction after all.

People Who Died

By The Jim Carroll Band, 1980
Written by Jim Carroll

Teddy sniffing glue, he was 12 years old,
Fell from the roof on East Two-nine.
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug.
26 reds and a bottle of wine.
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old.
He looked like 65 when he died.
He was a friend of mine.

Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
They were all my friends, and they died.

G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten,
So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan.
Sly in Vietnam: bullet in the head.
Bobby OD’d on Drano on the night that he was wed.
They were two more friends of mine —
Two more friends that died.

Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
They were all my friends, and they died.

Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room.
Bobby hung himself from a cell in The Tombs.
Judy jumped in front of a subway train.
Eddie got slit in the jugular vein.
And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others.
And I salute you, brother!

Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
They were all my friends, and they died.

Herbie pushed Tony from the Boys’ Club roof.
Tony thought that his rage was just some goof.
But Herbie sure gave Tony some bitchin’ proof.
“Hey,” Herbie said, “Tony, can you fly?”
But Tony couldn’t fly — Tony died.

Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
They were all my friends, and they died.

Brian got busted on a narco rap.
He beat the rap by rattin’ on some bikers.
He said, “Hey, I know it’s dangerous,
But it sure beats Riker’s.”
But the next day, he got offed
By the very same bikers.

Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
They were all my friends, and they died.

Teddy sniffing glue, he was 12 years old,
Fell from the roof on East Two-nine.
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine.
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old.
He looked like 65 when he died.
He was a friend of mine.

Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
They were all my friends, and they died.

G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten,
So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan.
Sly in Vietnam took a bullet in the head.
Bobby OD’d on Drano on the night that he was wed.
They were two more friends of mine.
I miss ’em. They died.

Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
They were all my friends, and they died.

Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room.
Bobby hung himself from a cell in The Tombs.
Judy jumped in front of a subway train,
And Eddie got slit in the jugular vein.
Eddie, I miss you more than all the others.
This song is for you, my brother.

Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
They were all my friends, and they died.

Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
Those are people who died, died.
They were all my friends, and they died.