Icon Alex Chilton — how cool do you have to be to get the Replacements to name a song after you? — died today in New Orleans, they say of a heart attack. He was 59.

I need some time to digest this, but Chilton’s music with Big Star and others defines the Heathen college experience as much as any artist other than U2 or the Velvet Underground. Mark Linkous I’ll miss. Barry Hannah, too. But Chilton, man. Damn.

“Won’t you tell me what you’re thinking of / Would you be an outlaw for my love?”

(It occurs to me that many may not know that Chilton also was a Box Top, and sang The Letter, a song that every single one of you know.)