"Someday, there'll be a cure for pain and that's the day I throw my drugs away."

A couple weeks ago, a band called Morphine was playing their second song at music festival in Palestina, Italy. Their lead singer, Mark Sandman, collapsed on stage suffering from a heart attack and was pronounced dead in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. He was 46.

I didn't know Mark Sandman, but I have been a fan of the band for a few years now. My brother picked up "Cure For Pain," and I was immediately drawn to the tenor baritone saxophone rhythms combined with the low slightly haunting beatnik lyrics. The band's sound was slow, heavy and full of purpose. Great for winding down an evening.

"I want to know what you got to say. I can tell you taste like the sky 'cause you look like rain."

Morphine was one of those independent bands from the Boston area that began on a small record label, and much like their music, their fan base grew slow and steady. In the end, the band had released five albums with the last one, "Like Swimming," produced on the Dreamworks label. Morphine songs ended up on many movie soundtracks like "Spanking the Monkey," "Get Shorty," "Beautiful Girls," and "Wild Things." The band regularly put on shows for hundreds of people with Sandman chatting with the crowd as if they were just one large person he had just met. This is why I remember the Sandman.

I saw Morphine play live for the first and only time last year. Sandman was the quintessential showman. He weaved between songs and dialogue with the crowd in total ease. He could coax the audience into rhythms and had them singing the line "French fries with pepper" over and over and over. Towards the end of the show, he kept announcing that they had to go and then go into another song after saying "Well, how about just one more." He did this several times and no one complained.

"Every night about, every night about, every night about eleven o'clock. Every night about, every night about, every night about eleven o'clock, I go out."

Sandman was an artist and led an artistic lifestyle. Along with Morphine, he was also in a band called Hypnosonics and Pale Brothers (a duo with a bluegrass mandolinist) as well as sitting in with jazz groups in Boston. He traveled the world when the band toured, interested in what diverse cultures expressed. When he wasn't touring, Sandman would hang out in the late night Boston music scene taking in local bands, constantly interested in what other musicians were doing.

There is a tendency in this country to build up athletes, movie stars, politicians, and the insanely wealthy into enviable entities. Well, I want more Mark Sandmans. I want more people scribbling out lyrics on the back of a bar napkin. I want more lead singers of bands to draw a connection between themselves and the audience. I want those who find success and fame in a certain vein of life to keep searching and evolving.

But mostly, I wish the original Mark Sandman was still around, singing in his low baritone voice and making a connection between himself and those listening to him.

"I got a head with wings, floating around up here above the clouds, so far above the ground, and the only thing that holds my head to the ground is this one little skinny string."

A music education fund is being set up in memory of Mark Sandman. If you are the kind of person who gives money in the event of a tragedy, here is as good a reason as any:

Music Education Fund
P.O. Box 382085
Cambridge, MA 02238

Chris Jungle has a head with wings.