Memphis garage rocker Jay Reatard, who broke out last year thanks to Watch Me Fall, has died at the age of 29, Reatard’s label Matador Records confirmed. According to Memphis’ Commercial Appeal, Reatard was found dead in his Memphis home at 3:30 am this morning and reportedly died in his sleep.
Who wait in the café and magazine.
Who wait for morning or fag machine.
Who leave it all unfinalised,
And undecided...
We who wait.
Who wait in the bus queue and prison cell.
Who wait for illness to take its toll.
Who wait for God knows what.
Sometimes it's not clear to...
We who wait.
I have been dancing in the penny arcade.
I'll hug the symbols of my apathy.
And hog the taste of anarchy and animosity.
It's any means of escape...
For those of us who wait.
Who wait in drinking and lost career.
Who wait for letter or high summer.
Who want some kind of clue.
It's not just two plus two to...
We who wait.
~Jay Reatard, "We Who Wait"
I'll never forget the incongruity of watching Jay Reatard play the courtyard of Stuyvesant Town last summer. I don't know why punk, of all things, refuses to die, even as so many of its bards continually do.
There is so much death to be seen today; this one more is slight, I suppose. One more person who few have heard of. But I watched kids dance to his music. And I am not going to forget it.