Forever 27 - The Myths, The Music, The Mystery

The supernatural or curse theory goes something like this. A young person is catapulted into fame at an early age. By becoming wealthy and famous, he or she attracts the attention of whatever malevolent spirits may be out there, who apparently want to take the young star down a notch - or down all the way. The presence of a jinx or a curse logically demands an entity of some kind making the death happen at a certain point in life. If a logical explanation really doesn't matter, then there just happens to be a jinx that is out there in the universe waiting for the unsuspecting young star to walk into. This theory is an easy one to accept if you don't think about it too closely, and it gets around a major problem with any blanket explanation - the different causes of death. But it still begs the question, why death at 27 - what's wrong with 28 or 30?

Amy Winehouse - She wanted to be famous, and worked very hard to achieve it, becoming a global sensation. She died from alcohol poisoning, having over 5 times the legal limit in her bloodsteam at the time of death.
 
Pete Ham - One of the founding members of the immensely successful rock group Badfinger, Ham hanged himself. He was unable to beat the extreme depression that resulted from his losing a fortune to unscrupulous management.
 
Ron McKernan - A much-loved founding member of the Grateful Dead, "Pigpen" McKernan's death was due to a stomach hemorrhage, the result of many years of heavy drinking, and a few drugs as well.
 
D. Boon - The Minutemen, a seminal and influential punk trio, lost their  singer-guitarist-songwriter to a touring accident. His neck was broken and he died instantly when the van he was sleeping in left the road.
 
Jim Morrison - Known as the Lizard King, the lead singer of the Doors supposedly died in Paris of heart failure, presumably brought on in part by alcohol abuse. And maybe a few drugs too.
 
Brian Jones - Another founding member of a world-famous band - the Rolling Stones - whose death was an accident. He drowned in a swimming pool, but the circumstances surrounding his death are still mysterious.
 
Kurt Cobain - Nirvana's main man, Cobain killed himself after either not being able to kick a heroin addiction, or because his stomach caused him terrible, chronic pain. His mother famously said that she had warned him "not to join that stupid club."
 
Robert Johnson - The father of modern blues and the rock and roll lifestyle. Johnson was a handsome ladies man who unwittingly drank poison-laced whiskey supplied by a husband of one of the ladies.
 
Janis Joplin - The Queen of San Francisco rock in the era of Flower Power, she apparently started drinking sometime before the summer of love 1967, and never stopped. Heroin was also to blame for her death.
 
Jimi Hendrix - The King of the electric guitar was asphyxiated on his own vomit after downing a mixture of alcohol and pills.

THE COPYCAT THEORY

The strange phenomenon of the copycat is very well known in psychology. Usually it is criminal or abnormal psychologists who study it, but it has its roots as a behavior in everyday human experience. We love to imitate others, especially if we see them achieving some sort of status through their actions. We think that if we do the same things, we'll get the same rewards. Some behaviors become attractive for their riskiness or fringe quality, and copycat criminals try to do the deeds of their mentors just because it seems like a good idea. Maybe Amy Winehouse was just doing what Janis Joplin did, and wound up in the same situation with only one way out. Or maybe not - their deaths were judged to be accidental. That's a major flaw in this theory - how does it explain the involuntary deaths that have happened? Maybe there's simply some kind of pattern or path that these forever 27 club members got sucked into, and couldn't get out.

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

The arc of any given human being's life on average follows a similar trajectory. There is birth, early childhood, preteen, adolescence, young adult, mature adult, and old age - to simplify the stages of life somewhat. Every human goes through stages of development and comes out the other side ready for the next stage to begin. Perhaps the fame, wealth, attention, and praise that comes with such a meteoric rise causes arrested development issues, and the star cannot continue in an untenable and impossible situation. Of course, there are members of the club who didn't really achieve the heights of others, but it could still have something to do with the whole culture of rock and roll - the live fast, die young approach.

THE PRICE OF FAME

Still, many of those who met their death at 27 did become well-known enough to merit inclusion in the club - they weren't just ordinary people living normal lives. Being in the public eye, having some notoriety, being recognized on the street, all of this can have an effect on a person even if the fortune isn't really matching the fame. It is a commonplace idea that fame has its price, and that it exacts a huge cost from the unwitting star. Maybe at this age the pressures become too great and the cost can't be paid, so the universe miraculously conspires to end a life.

COINCIDENCE

When all the possibilities are looked at and considered, it is hard to rationally accept any of them as being the one explanation for the forever 27 deaths that have happened.  After all, there are many young stars who died in similarly tragic circumstances at other ages -it just happens to be true that a boatload of famous people died 27 years after the year of their birth. There is nothing occult or significant about the number 27, in fact the number 23 has many more strange qualities and connections. But the world and life somehow have created a mystery for us to think about and to keep us awake at night. Only the members of the forever 27 club know the answer for sure, and they aren't telling.