I woke up this morning and twitter told me Alex Chilton was dead. He died of heart complications in an emergency room in New Orleans. He was scheduled to play at SXSW this weekend.

I moved to Montreal when I was 19 and got a French boyfriend who was obsessed with 70s punk. He played me Thirteen and it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It felt so familiar, even though I’d never heard it before. He then proceeded to nerd out at me about how cool the backing vocals sound and how they were played through a Leslie and all that (which is actually interesting), but all I could focus on was the lyrics and the bittersweet melody. This was a song I was always going to come back to.

Alex Chilton did lots of othe good stuff – he was in the Box Tops and had a bunch of chart hits, and September Gurls by Big Star is pretty rad too, but I think Thirteen is his masterpiece. I’ve just had it on repeat while writing this and it’s squeezing my little heart. RIP Alex Chilton. Thanks for your songs.