Mark Sandman/Morphine

Mark Sandman was a musician embedded in the Cambridge/Boston music scene. At the time we were living in Cambridge, he was in a band called Morphine. (The name of the band was apparently derived from Morpheus, the god of dreams, rather than the painkiller... though, sadly, he probably knew a thing or two about those having been robbed and stabbed in the chest while driving a cab...)

I don't know what brought me back to Morphine yesterday while YouTube surfing. I haven't listened to them in many, many years. But, I stumbled upon their music again, there they were, and it was amazing. His voice, their sound, the words, the mood... Beautiful, haunting, romantic...hooking into me more at 43 than it did at 30.

Mark died in 1999 at the age of 46. His heart gave out while performing.