Each Friday I pick a song–new, old, borrowed, blue–that’s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.

This is “I’ll Be Your Sister” by Motörhead:

So, Lemmy died this week. He was 70 years old, which seems amazing for a guy who drank and smoked and drugged, and disdained basic nutrition and sunlight, as much as he did. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Motörhead, but then again, not liking Motörhead seems kind of impossible.  Everybody knows “Ace of Spades” so I thought I’d mark Lemmy’s ascension to the great rock ‘n’ roll swindle in the sky with “I’ll Be Your Sister”, which I first heard in this cover version by Superchunk. Lemmy’s rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle is (was) a lot of the attraction of the dude, I guess, though I always thought he was less interesting than a lot of people seemed to think.  On the other hand, I suspect the reason a lot of rock musicians loved him so much was because he didn’t just live the superflously-umlauted lifestyle, he lived the life: Lemmy played rock ‘n’ roll constantly through his adult life, and he played it really loudly, and those riffs are really big, and they’re really fun–and most importantly, they’re really fun to play.