While good music can live on forever, the composers and creators can’t… but that doesn’t mean you can’t visit them and pay your respects. Conveniently enough, three of the world’s most renowned musicians (from completely different genres) now call Père Lachaise cemetery in Eastern Paris home. So whom can you visit? Time to find out…
Jim Morrison
A founding member of the 27 Club (if you don’t know what this is, it’s not a club you want to join), Jim might best be known as The Lizard King and lead singer of The Doors. Rock worshippers from around the world continue to visit his grave in Paris, so much so that a fence had to be erected around it because so many girls were ruining the tombstone with lipstick marks (and people stole the marble bust of him). He’s been dead for more than 40 years and he still has girls chasing after him… Not bad!
Edith Piaf
Once regarded as France’s National Diva, Edith Piaf has amassed a cult following for her French cabaret music. For those teary, heart aching times, Edith’s your girl, with a soundtrack to really make your sadness a cinematic event. You can stop by her gravesite after visiting Jim Morrison – it will be easy to find because it’s always covered in roses, largely due to her most iconic song ‘La Vie en Rose’.
Chopin
Another famous non-frenchy buried in Père Lachaise cemetery, Polish composer and pianist Chopin may have died over 150 years ago, but his legacy will never die. Maybe part of that legacy is the strange burial… his body is in the cemetery but his heart was shipped back to Poland.
