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Life Is Worth Losing

2005 live album by George Carlin

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ6544888
Source-derived summary

Life Is Worth Losing is the 18th album and 13th HBO special by American comedian George Carlin. It was recorded simultaneously with the live broadcast of the special and was his final special recorded at the Beacon Theatre.

The special was the first project Carlin had undertaken since completing drug rehabilitation in 2005. Early on in the program, Carlin announced that he was 341 days sober at the time of the recording, and that 2006 would be his 50th year in show business. Much of the material in the special focuses on topics such as torture, depression, suicide and genocide, and the stage is adorned with tombstones. Carlin later revealed that he had been suffering from heart failure during the recording of the special and was subsequently hospitalized for a short time afterward.

Portions of "Coast-to-Coast Emergency" were originally part of a routine titled "Uncle Dave", intended for a planned 2001 Carlin special to be titled I Kinda Like It When a Lotta People Die, which was reworked after the September 11 attacks and retitled Complaints and Grievances. A live recording of "Uncle Dave" was later issued on the 2016 posthumous release I Kinda Like It When a Lotta People Die, derived from cassette tapes from Carlin's personal collection.

Life Is Worth Losing was nominated for Best Comedy Album at the 49th Annual Grammy Awards, but lost to Lewis Black's The Carnegie Hall Performance. A DVD of the special was released on February 27, 2007, by MPI Home Video.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Life Is Worth Losing” as 2005 live album by George Carlin. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2005, 2006, 2001, 2016—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2005-11-05. The account is most persuasive where Life, Worth and Losing can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 2005 live album by George Carlin. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6544888. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2005, 2006, 2001 and 2016.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Life Is Worth Losing”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Life Is Worth Losing primary sources, Life Is Worth Losing archive and Life research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Life Is Worth Losing”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Life Is Worth Losing” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.