Singer-songwriter David Olney has died at age 71, after falling silent and dropping his head in the midst of a performance at the 30A Songwriters Festival in Florida Saturday night.
Some news reports said he “collapsed” on stage, but that isn’t quite true: Olney simply became still on his stool, leading some audience members and even the musicians beside him to think he was simply taking a pause, before they realized what had happened and lowered him to the stage.
In the wake of his passing, some fans and friends posted videos that shared his lighter side, like his cover of the Nancy Sinatra/Lee Hazlewood classic “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’,” which revived the go-go choreography of the original.
Others naturally opted for his more elegiac numbers, like “The Moment I Tell You Goodbye,” with these lyrics:
The ceiling will fall to the floor
The windows will walk out the door
The old clock will run out of time
And reason will run out of rhyme
The sea will no longer be blue
The truth will no lo longer be true
And ev’rything left is a lie
The moment I tell you goodbye
Tomorrow will never begin
Forever will come to an end
The sun will fall from the sky
The moment I tell you goodbye
