AC-DC and a lesson in life from Malcolm Young.

I've never been a fan of AC-DC, but I get it.

Founding member Malcolm Young's departure from the group owes to the saddest of reasons, as Bernard Zuel explains in the Sydney Morning Herald: AC/DC's Malcolm Young reportedly in care for dementia in Sydney.

It may be that dementia is claiming another giant, this time a musical one.

AC/DC co-founder, guitarist and songwriter Malcolm Young, whose retirement from the band was announced on Wednesday, has been moved into full-time care in a nursing home facility in Sydney's eastern suburbs specialising in dementia, sources connected to the Young family have said.

Americans in particular enjoy deriving life's lessons from organized sports. I've generally preferred music as metaphor, and an insightful appreciation from the Guardian falls into this category, explaining how a seemingly unimportant rhythm guitarist can be a band's major cog.

Malcolm Young understood that a great riff does not need 427 components to make it great, that what it really needs is clarity. That meant stripping riffs down rather than building them up, and it also meant understanding volume. Given how loud AC/DC can be in concert – ear-ringingly, sternum-shakingly loud – it might be surprising to learn that, in the studio at least, Malcolm Young favoured quietness: he played with his amps turned down, but with the mics extremely close. That’s why, on the great AC/DC albums, you hear not just the chords of the riffs, but their very texture, their burnished, rounded sound. It’s why AC/DC are immediately recognisable, whether or not you know the song.

AC-DC will carry on with a new guitarist, an album and a tour. In closing, here's a priceless sentence, enlarged.

AC/DC's Malcolm Young departs as new album Rock or Bust announced (Guardian)

... In the US, a track from the album, Play Ball, will be teased from 27 September as part of the Major League Baseball post-season campaign.

It is possible, given AC/DC’s history of ball-related double entendres, that the song is not actually about baseball.

Indeed. It is very, very possible.