Dear Carolynn

Author: Mark Bolton. Subbing: DeepSeek. Images: Fotor (all AI gernerated)

FICTION

Dear Carolynn

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on the nature of success—how strangely we measure it by wealth, possessions, and status. This line of thought reminded me of a fleeting pop icon from the early 1970s. His story, like so many others, highlights a troubling pattern: the way society equates achievement with material or ‘other’ types of excess dressed up to look like success.

We applaud people for their luxury homes, cars, boats, or planes, but rarely acknowledging that these “trophies” often rest on a house of cards—purchased on credit, leveraged against prior debts. One economic shift can unravel it all, devastating not just the individual but their family and financial dependents. And yet, despite seeing this cycle repeat, many still claim they “never saw it coming.” From Diamond to stone.

It makes me wonder: What about ‘other’ forms of success?

Inspired by this thought (and loosely based on the glam-rock figure, the late John Stanley Cave—aka William Shakespeare, who had a couple of big hits in Australia back when men had long hair, wore flared jeans, stepped out with platform shoes, and some enjoyed being androgynous), I wrote this fictional piece exploring how 15 minutes of fame can sometimes lead to a lifetime of struggle. It’s a tale about the cost of chasing illusions.

• For the record, I base this story not on the Bad Company song, Shooting Star.

The Measure of a Man

The rain lashed against the stained glass of the Liverpool chapel, a grey, watery echo of the Mersey that had birthed successful dreams for some and unsuccessful nightmares for the rest. Inside the 17th century church, the air hung thick with damp wool, cigar and weed aromatics, expensive perfume, and guilty regrets. Pete Doone stood at the lectern, his weathered face etched with a grief deeper than the lines around his eyes. Below him, a sea of faces–some tear-streaked, others politely somber, and a few holding onto a bygone era looking very much like faded rock stardom. All here for John Savage. Or, as Pete pondered in his thoughts, for the spectacle of it.

“John Savage,” Pete began, his voice, once capable of filling stadiums, now rough with emotion and the familiar Scouse cadence. “A Liverpool kid born just streets away from where McCartney and Lennon sparked something that set this whole city alight. The Mersey Beat wasn’t just music back then, it was oxygen. We breathed it in the Cavern’s sweat, felt it in the cobbles under our school shoes. John and me, we weren’t just mates, we were blood brothers sworn to that beat.“

He paused, closed his eyes and remembered two scruffy lads huddled over a crackly record player in John’s mum’s front room, air-guitaring until their arms ached. “The dream was simple: be them. Be the Beatles. We formed bands with daft names, practiced in garages that smelled of engine oil and teenage ambition. The Northern Cobble Stoners, later just The Cobble Stoners” A faint, sad smile touched Pete’s lips. “Silly name, and grand dreams. John was there from the start and played guitar on our first, self titled album. John was our fiercest believer., but the truth was… the guitar never quite sang for him like it did for others. His fingers were loyal, but not blessed. When the Cobble Stoners started getting proper gigs, getting tighter… well, the hard choice had to be made. He wasn’t in the final lineup that became a global sensation.”

Pete’s gaze swept the room, lingering momentarily on a cluster of faces he recognised from Rolling Stone covers and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductions who gathered to support Pete, but not to mourn John–faces John had desperately wanted to be counted among. “It broke his heart, but John never stopped believing in us. He was our roadie, our cheerleader, our mate. And when the Cobble Stoners hit–when we had those number ones, those albums flying out the shops, the screaming crowd, John shared that glory. He was part of the madness until late 1976 when Steve Donaldson and Dave Robbins died after Steve’s Triumph TR3 Sports crashed on the way home from what turned out to be our final gig in Birmingham”

The melancholy deepened in his voice. “You all know how it goes. The joy died with those boys. Music tastes were changing and we were on our way out anyway. The Cobble Stoners? Well, we became a trivia question. ‘Whatever happened to…?’ I was heartbroken and packed it in and went back to a normal life and became a high school music teacher. I became a bloke you’d pass in the supermarket and nobody knew who I was–exactly the way I wanted it.”

“But John… John wasn’t done. He gave one last effort when our former label gave John a shot at an album riding on the coat tails of the tragic ending to The Cobble Stoners. It was one of the worst albums I’ve ever heard, and Rolling Stone ranked John’s self-titled solo album Number 22 in its worst ever albums of all time, and quite likely the only reason it wasn’t Number 1 on the list is because of the opening song on the album.”

Pete straightened slightly. “Late ’77 and Punk’s snarling, disco’s glittering, and out comes this perfect and deeply moving rock ballad John wrote and sang from the heart about the loss of Dave and Steve. ‘Sunshine After Rain’. A classy melody, perfect lyrics, and a hook that was as catchy as hell. I’ve seen grown men reduced to tears when they listen to the emotions John shared. This was his moment-in-time when everything he did on this song was sheer perfection. It was somehow sad yet hopeful–and perfect for FM radio running eight minutes and 47 seconds. It started with vocal and ended with a long and beautiful tenor cold ending. No radio jock could speak over the intro or outro even if they wanted to do so.”

“This was John’s moment of utter perfection”, Pete added. “A one-hit wonder, they called it. But what a hit. “Sunshine After Rain made John a millionaire, made him famous in a way we never were, individually. And the royalties, well they never stopped and likely never will, and nobody knows now if John has an estate. His song became a classic. It’s played at weddings, and funerals, in supermarkets, malls, pubs–it will outlast us all because you can’t go anywhere in the world hearing it being played”

Pete faltered. “John had more money than any of us here. A mansion in Surrey. But money wasn’t the measure John used.” Pete leaned forward, his knuckles white on the lectern. “See, John measured success by the respect of us.” Pete nodded towards the cluster of famous faces, who shifted uncomfortably. “The serious musicians, the critics’ darlings, the ones who defined the ‘scene’. He saw himself as their equal – the man who wrote and sung that song. But to them? He was ‘the Sunshine After Rain bloke’ who had one moment of sheer brilliance despite his lack of real talent. A shit album that contained one masterpiece.“

Pete’s voice dropped, thick with regret. “He tried. God, he tried so hard. He’d seek them out, at parties, awards, backstage. He wanted in. He wanted their camaraderie, their acceptance. But his intensity–his desperate need–it scared them off. He’d talk music theory he barely grasped, name-dropped Cobble Stoners gigs they’d forgotten. He weirded them out. And every rejection, every polite brush-off, every snigger behind his back… it was a knife in him.“

Pete looked down at his notes, seeing not words, but John’s image. “John blamed me, of course. Because I, Pete Doone, co-founder of the long-time forgotten Cobble Stoners, could walk into a room with those very same people, and get a warm handshake, a shared laugh about the old days. They respected the music we made, the time we represented. They didn’t see me as a threat, just a relic like them. And that proximity, that effortless belonging poisoned John against me. We hadn’t spoken properly in decades. Four divorces later, his anger, his sense of failure, well, it pushed everyone in his life away, including people who had no idea John wrote and sang “Sunshine After Rain.“

Pete took a shaky breath. The chapel was utterly silent. “Then, last month, I got that call. Out of the blue. John’s voice, lighter than I’d heard in years. He wanted to bury the hatchet and make amends. He said fifty years was too long. I was overjoyed because my best mate was coming back into my life. Fool that I was. I invited him to my place in London. My penthouse. I was so excited at the thought we’d share a few drinks, talk about the old days, the real days, before the madness, and maybe even play a few songs just for fun.“

Closing his eyes once again, Pete, with the image stark behind his lids said, “When John arrived, he looking tired, thin–but he smiled into the security camera. I buzzed him up, opened my front door and I hugged him like a man who hugs a long lost brother. I had tears flowing from my eyes as I told him how much I missed my best mate. He just stood there showing no emotion. Then he walked past me while telling me I had an amazing view over Lords Cricket Ground. What nobody here yet knows is John went straight to the balcony, and without uttering a word”–Pete’s voice cracked. “John just… stepped off.“

A collective gasp rippled through the chapel, followed by stifled sobs. Pete opened his tear filled eyes, raw pain etched on his face. “His note…his farewell note–it wasn’t about money. It wasn’t about his hit song. It was about me. John said he hated me. Hated that I was loved by the people who shunned him. Hated that I belonged where he never could. He wanted me to see it. He wanted his last moments to be my burden. He wanted me to suffer knowing I had what he killed himself for not having.”

Pete looked out at the congregation, his gaze finally meeting the eyes of the famous musicians. There was no accusation in his look, only profound, weary sorrow. “John Savage died a lonely and childless multi-millionaire, maybe billionaire, who knows. He wrote a song the whole world containing different generations sings. But he died believing he was a failure. Because he measured his life by a yardstick held by others. By the approval of people whose own measure is just as flawed, just as fleeting.”

Pete stepped back slightly, his voice dropping to a near whisper, yet carrying to every corner of the hushed chapel. “What destroys a man? Sometimes it’s not the lack of success, but the wrong kind of it. The kind that feeds the wallet but starves the soul. The kind that makes you look outward for your worth, instead of inward. John had a gift and he gave it to the world. He touched and touches millions with a simple song. He had a childhood friend who loved him. But he couldn’t see it. He only saw what he wasn’t, through the eyes of those who never really mattered.“

Pete touched the lectern gently, a final farewell. “Rest easy, John Savage. Our kid from Liverpool. I hope you find the peace there you never found here. And I hope we all learn… to measure our lives by a kinder scale.”

Pete stepped down, the rain on the windows the only sound in the heavy silence, a melancholy counterpoint to a lost Mersey beat. The true cost of success, measured in broken dreams and a final, terrible fall, hung in the damp air.

It was rock and roll, so there was a party that went for days despite the aging bodies and minds. John finally achieved what he always wanted, to be celebrated as an equal.

Don’t allow a validation by others to determine how you see you or your success. Don’t allow the negativity of others push you into a dark place. While this story is fiction, it doesn’t mean it is not true.