Brad Delp tribute

I doubt many folks noticed a sad article which ran a couple months back... it reported the death of Bradley Delp on March 9, 2007. His body was found at his home Atkinson, New Hampshire by his fiancee.

The name may not mean much to you, but if you close your eyes and think of a few songs from the late 70s like 'more than a feeling', 'hitch a ride', 'rock and roll band' and 'Long Time', his name may mean something...

Brad Delp was the lead singer for Boston, a rock and roll band which enjoyed huge success in the late 70s and early 80s, and still tours today.

Boston's official website was taken down the next day and replaced with a few words on a black screen: "We just lost the nicest guy in rock and roll"...

I know this: this guy had one of the purest voices I have ever heard. When I was a teenager, I knew every word of every song that Boston did. I dreamed of singing those soaring vocals and tried (poorly) to imitate those impossibly high harmonies, all of which were performed by Brad on the original recordings.

I believe God designs every human being with a 'God-sized' hole in his heart. And most of us spend our lives trying to fill in that hole with 'stuff' or with relationships or with things other than God... I never knew Mr. Delp personally, and I am not qualified to judge his heart... but I am saddened by his untimely death...

(...and it causes me to wonder if he ever tried to 'fill' the hole in his heart with God... I know it is presumptious of me to even have that thought...)

What makes this story especially tragic is that he ended his own life.... he brought two hibachi grills into his upstairs bathroom, shut the door, filled them with charcoal, lit them and then laid on the bathroom floor on his pillow and went to sleep. He left a note on the door warning whoever found him that there may still be dangerous levels of carbon monoxide in the air... he also left a personal letter for his fiancee, one for each of his children and one for their mother, his ex-wife.

But the saddest note he left was the one he pinned to his own collar before he laid down for the last time...

it simply read: "Mr. Brad Delp. J'ai une âme solitaire. I am a lonely soul."

May God Bless the family and Friends of Brad Delp. June 12, 1951 – March 9, 2007