Baby, why you make me do that?

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Special thanks to Frau Skippy, who contributed the title of this post.)

We at the Daily Marmoset would like to bid farewell to America's Most Lovable Wife-Beating Crackhead, the late Ike Turner. Everyone knows Ike Turner was a bad, bad person. But the world would be a much poorer place if only nice guys were allowed to play music (or write, paint, act, etc.). Turner was a bastard, but he was a talented bastard.

See the Videography page of his official website, for instance. One of the Youtube videos is a slideshow set to a medley of "Rocket 88", which many music historians consider to be the first true rock & roll song, followed by "A Fool in Love" and "It's Gonna Work Out Fine", two of the better (if somewhat ironically named) songs from his years with Tina Turner.

There is also a RealPlayer video of Ike performing on Conan O'Brien in 2001. Turner's guitar work slipped quite a few pegs in his later years (I hear smoking crack does that), but is still very impressive. I wonder, though, if Conan's staff paid any attention to the lyrics before they let him play his then-newest single, "I Gave You What You Wanted". In the context of who's singing it (and who he's probably singing it to), it's a very disturbing song.