Please allow me to begin this blog with a quote from Dave Paulson of the Nashville Tennessean:
“On June 5, 1968, songwriter Dick Holler was in New York City working on a new album with the Royal Guardsmen when Robert Kennedy was assassinated. It had been just two months since the murder of Martin Luther King Jr.
“Holler headed home to Florida, where in just 10 minutes, he wrote a poignant song, connecting the murders to those of John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln.”
That song was called Abraham, Martin and John and was recorded by a number of artists, none so brilliantly as Marvin Gaye. The narrator appears to be looking for his friends, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, John F Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy but he “just looked around and he’s gone.”
I cannot remember when I first heard the song but I can remember how much I loved it, not really understanding the lyrics until sometime later. It remains a favourite and usually springs to mind when someone I know, a family member or friend, dies, usually before their time.
My partner and I have lost an alarming number of family members and friends in 2025, all of whom, perhaps bar one, before their time and my reaction is always to reach for this record. “It seems the good they die young,” says the narrator, “I just looked around and he was gone.” And that is how it feels. Life was proceeding as normal and the next moment, they were gone.
In every single instance, we both regretted that we had not looked around before they were gone. Irrational, of course, because actually we had not been neglectful. We maintained contact with our friends and loved ones as best we could, despite two of them living on the other side of the world. But you always feel you could have done more, don’t you?
Has 2025 just been a very bad year or is it more to do with my advancing age? Will every year be like this from now on? After all that’s happened, who’s to say it won’t be me next? It would be impossible not to consider my own mortality after this unhappy trip down what feels like Sniper’s Alley.
To Nick, Jen, John, Pete, Roger, John, Jane and now Chris, our lives are poorer without you, each and every one irreplaceable. We just looked around and you were gone.
With grateful thanks to Dick Holler.
