A Lord Byron Playlist

Back when Twitter was still (somewhat) good, someone by the user name @Swaefastide posted a portrait of Lord Byron, in traditional Albanian costume, with the caption, “I will NEVER apologize for being a wildly successful alpha male,” lampooning the words of Trump-endorsed author Nick Adams. Non-Trump-endorsed author Ryan Ruby took the parody one step further, retweeting the original Byron post with the caption: “Shat himself to death in Missolonghi.” 

April 19 marks 200 years since that moment. In Greece, fighting in the country’s war of independence, Byron wasn’t killed on the battlefield. Instead, he took a decidedly Byronic horseback ride through a torrential downpour and contracted a fever. The large amounts of bloodletting didn’t help his condition, and while an autopsy report from his death doesn’t reveal any other bodily fluids, I like the image that Ruby presents for its wider ramifications. “Byron’s death…was as fraught with contradictions as his life,” Corin Throsby writes in this week’s Times Literary Supplement, later adding: “Though an aristocrat, Byron had relatively humble beginnings before he inherited his title at the age of ten, and he championed underdog causes throughout his life. He lived a life of excess and courted endless public curiosity, but also had periods of abstemiousness and solitude. A steadfast and loving friend, he could be downright cruel in his romantic relationships. His friend Lady Blessington described his character as ‘chameleon-like,’ ever evading a neat description.” 

In that spirit, this Lord Byron playlist captures the chameleon-like nature of the poet, from politics to self-indulgence to no sparing amount of Big Dick Energy.