Premature death numbs us. The young aren’t supposed to die. They do, of course, taken by illness or accident or other causes, but they aren’t supposed to. We wail and protest, “But it wasn’t their time!” 

Every death is tragic. When death combines youth and artistic talent, the loss echoes. The 27 Club is an exclusive membership. To qualify, one must be musically gifted. One must also cease to exist by the age of 27.

1970, Pierre Elliot Trudeau is Prime Minister of Canada, Nixon is President of the United States. Simon & Garfunkel release Bridge Over Troubled Water, All In The Family rules the airwaves. Hurricane Celia hammers Corpus Christi, Texas. I master the hula hoop, become a hopscotch ace, and get a new Barbie.

That fall, Jimi Hendrix dies of asphyxiation. Less than a month later, Janis Joplin also passes, most likely from a heroin overdose. Both were 27. Less than a year later, in July 1971, Jim Morrison dies. With no autopsy, no clear cause of death is given, although heart failure following heroin ingestion seems to be the accepted cause.

The 27 Club, with a membership dating as far back in history as 1892, continued to accept inductees, but it wasn’t until Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain committed suicide in 1994 that the dots began to connect. Amy Winehouse’s death in 2011, attributed to alcohol poisoning, sealed the coffin.

Soul singers and drummers, poets and guitarists, and the causes of death are as varied as the talents. A few deaths–contributed to complications from diabetes, accident or misadventure-don’t raise the eyebrows too high. Studies show that while there is a higher death rate among artists between the ages of 20 and 30, there is no solid evidence that 27 is a cursed age.

Is it the age, or is it the rock hard, live harder lifestyle of these icons that capture the dark recesses of our imagination? Overdose, alcoholism, suicide, and even murder, make those losses seem more tragic. Their sensationalism makes us wonder, perhaps believe, that curses can come true.