Tragedy truly struck Roy Orbison in 1966, when his first wife Claudette died in a motorcycle crash. In addition to the loss, Roy was devastated by having witnessed the event, as well. He was riding ahead of her when it happened. The crash seemed to have also taken his muse from him. Orbison lost the inspiration to write new songs after that, but he still had the will to keep touring.

Then a house fire took the lives of his two eldest sons two years later. Luckily, by this time, he had met Barbara Jakobs, who would soon be his second wife. Orbison’s son, Roy Jr., told Closer Weekly in July 2020 that Barbara “came into [Roy Sr.’s] life at a time where he was not in good shape, and she just breathed fresh air into it.” Although his father was obviously affected by the loss of Claudette and his first sons, Roy Jr. recalls a father who “just went forward. He never looked back.”

That kind of foresight definitely sounds like the Roy Orbison who, like so many other musicians who predicted their own deaths, went on to write 1987’s “Life Fades Away” for the Less Than Zero film soundtrack. “My time has come, the clouds are calling,” the song begins. “All at once it’s too late, life fades away.”