Many famous musicians, actors, and actresses had weird jobs before they got to be well-known. Maybe they were putting themselves through college at the time. Or wanted to help out their family. Perhaps they just were after a taste of the real world. Whatever the motivation was, it's fun to look back at their motley earlier careers. HARDY, for one, had a job that most of us would want to sidestep, if possible. He was once, of all things, a gravedigger.
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The singer and songwriter extraordinaire recently told Jimmy Fallon, host of The Tonight Show, about his previous incarnation as a gravedigger. HARDY carried out his duties in the role with enthusiasm and gusto, and not at all grudgingly.
HARDY Claims It Was "Really Fun"
Creating a space in the earth for someone's peaceful interment is not most people's concept of "fun." But HARDY says that for him, it indeed was.
He shared with Jimmy Fallon, "It was really fun. Other than this job, it was the most fun I've ever had as a worker. I just had a great boss. Our departments were so small because our town was so small. It was the cemetery department/animal control. So in the summer, when it would get really hot and all of the grass would die, we'd just chase stray dogs around. But yeah, I was a gravedigger."
He seems to have translated his experiences into some great tracks that ruminate upon the hereafter. Songs such as "Everybody Does" and "Six Feet Under." That is a trait of a born songwriter - channeling their lived experience into raw material to craft art.
The Last Frontier Has a Certain Appeal for Him
HARDY is somewhat drawn to death as a topic. Most of us shun it as much as we can, despite the fact that it will touch us all at some point. When he was on Katie & Company last year, he went into detail about this dark fascination. HARDY views death as a unifying concept that draws all of us together, whatever our differences may be. His explanation makes perfect sense.
"People were just like, 'Man, you got a lot of songs about dying.' And I always have, but I've just always thought like, in a world where everybody's just always... nobody can agree on anything. The sky is not blue to some people. and, you know, it's like people say death and taxes, but in reality, some people don't even pay their taxes."
He added, "But the only thing we have in common is death, and if that's if that's a theme that I wanna write about just to bring people together and make sure everybody you know in the room relates to one thing, then so be it."
