Coronavirus top 20 playlist: Rock the pandemic

Bored out of your skull because you’re stuck at home with nothing to do during the coronavirus pandemic? Yeah, me too. So, having nothing better to do, I decided to assemble a personal COVID-19 playlist to help fellow stuck-at-home virus-haters pass the time.

My music of choice tends to be rock, so this is a rock playlist. If you want to listen to Adele or Garth Brooks or Tupac or Kanye West or Taylor Swift, uh … sorry.

20

Photograph by Def Leppard

1983, Pyromania

Key lyric: “All I’ve got is a photograph. I want to touch you.” Great song if you’re separated from your significant other and lamenting how much social distancing sucks.

19

Doctor Doctor by UFO

1974, Phenomenon

Key lyric: “She walked up to me and really stole my heart. And then she started to take my body apart.” This is why you don’t date during a pandemic. (Not to be confused with the Robert Palmer tune. This one rocks harder, which is why it made my list.

18

Three Little Pigs
by Green Jelly

1992, Cereal Killer

Key lyric: “Little pig, little pig, let me in. Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.” And that, my friend, is how you keep people from invading your space. (And if that doesn’t work, the lyrics suggest your next step: call Rambo).

17

Bad Medicine by Bon Jovi

1988, New Jersey

Key lyric: “There ain't no doctor that can cure my disease.” Yeah, I know, this is one of those songs comparing love/infatuation with an incurable sickness. But I had to include it because the title fit Donald Trump’s idiotic ideas about injecting bleach and prescribing untested medicine (hydroxychloroquine) all too well.

16

The Sound of Silence
By Disturbed

2015, Immortalized

Key lyric: “And in the naked light I saw, ten thousand people, maybe more: people talking without speaking, people hearing without listening…” Because everything’s virtual now. This is, of course, a cover of the classic Simon & Garfunkel track, but somehow, Disturbed did it better. The sound of silence can now be heard in arenas and stadiums all across the country.

15

No Matter What
by Lillian Axe

1992, Poetic Justice

Key lyric: “No matter what you are, I will always be with you.” Another cover. This one was originally done (well) by Badfinger, but this more-metal version kicks Axe. How many of us don’t want to “knock down the old gray wall” and “be a part of it all” in the middle of this crisis?

14

Fight from the Inside
by Queen

1977, News of the World

Key lyric: “You gotta fight from the inside.” That’s what most of us are doing these days. “You think that out in the streets is all free.” But being out in the streets isn’t such a good idea with that virus floating around. This hard-rocking deep cut’s a hidden gem off one of Queen’s best releases.

13

Blackout by Scorpions

1982, Blackout (title track)

Key lyric: “I got lost in a deep black hole. Don't want to find out. Just want to cut out.” Sound familiar?

12

Remedy by Black Crows

1992, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion

Key lyric: “All I want is a remedy.” A vaccine would be nice, too.

11

Epic by Faith No More

1990, The Real Thing

Key lyric: “You want it all, but you can’t have it. It’s in your face, but you can’t grab it.” No, you can’t. You’ve gotta stay inside. Sucks to be you.

10

Livin’ on the Edge
by Aerosmith

1993, Get a Grip

Key lyric: “There's somethin' wrong with the world today, I don't know what it is… Tell me what you think about your situation: Complication, aggravation is getting to you.” Sounds about right. If a pandemic doesn’t put you on edge (and on THE edge) what will?

9

COMA by GUNS N’ ROSES

1991, Use Your Illusion I

Key lyric: “There were always ample warnings. There were always subtle signs. And you would have seen it coming. But we gave you too much time.” (U.S. government response?) Also: “All I needed was clarity, and someone to tell me what the fuck is going on. Goddamn it.” My favorite cut from the Gn’R catalog, an epic 10-minute cut that describes a coma from the patient’s point of view.

8

Change or Die by Papa Roach

2009, Metamorphosis

Key lyric: “Are you sick of just getting by? … Change or die!” Pretty much what we have to do. Ironically, it’s what the virus has to do, too. It’s got to mutate fast enough to stay ahead of any treatment we might develop. The album title, Metamorphosis, says it all.

7

Isolation
by Jeff Beck/Johnny Depp

2020, single

Key lyric: “We're afraid of everyone. Afraid of the sun. Isolation.” This collaboration from the guitar legend and Captain Jack Sparrow was actually released during the crisis, but it was written by John Lennon back in the 1970s. It may be hard to imagine, but (with apologies to the Beatle genius), the Beck-Depp version is better. Said Beck: “Given all the hard days and true ‘isolation’ that people are going through in these challenging times, we decided now might be the right time to let you all hear it.” Can’t argue with that.

6

Sick for the Cure
by Cinderella

1990, Heartbreak Station

Key lyric: “Sick for the cure on this roller coaster ride… I just wanna be free, free like the wind.” With all the projections, daily updates, encouragement tempered by words of warning, it sure has been a roller coaster ride. Wanna be free again? Don’t we all!

5

Virus by Memphis May Fire

2017, Virus (title track)

Key lyric: “This poison fills my lungs, but I won't let it fill my soul… You’re just a virus, and I didn’t come here to die.” The kind of defiant anthem for those who have dealt with the virus on a personal level: “When I fight, I remember why I'm still alive. I'm holding onto what is left inside.”

4

Sick as a Dog by Aerosmith

1976, Rocks

Key lyric: “Sick as a dog. What’s your story? Sick as a dog. Cat got your tongue. Sick as a dog. You’ll be sorry. ’Cause you really ain’t that young.” Yeah, if you’re over 60, you’d better watch out. Steven Tyler and Tom Hamilton wrote this long before the pandemic, and it has nothing to do with the coronavirus, but it sure as hell seems to fit.

3

Down with the Sickness
by Disturbed

2000, The Sickness

Key lyric: “I can see inside you, the sickness is rising. Don't try to deny what you feel. (Will you give in to me?)… It seems you're having some trouble in dealing with these changes, living with these changes (oh no). The world is a scary place.” It sure is. “You feel that? Ah, shit.” Singer David Draiman even sounds like he’s going to cough up a lung. A little too close to home, but still a great cut.

2

Cure Me or Kill Me
by Gilby Clarke

1994, Pawn Shop Guitars

Key lyric: “Cure me. Or Kill me. But don't leave me here for dead. Again.” Feel like you’re stuck in limbo because of this damned virus? If so, this the perfect cut to rock out to. For the uninitiated, Gilby Clarke replaced Izzy Stradlin in Guns N’ Roses before the band imploded. Then he put out a solo album with this as the lead single. More than a quarter-century later, it’s note-perfect.

1

Epidemic by New Year’s Day

2014, Epidemic EP (title track)

Key lyric: “We are infected and no one is protected … There's no cure for what's in us … Now there's poison on our tongues. This epidemic's gonna kill us all.” The song’s really about cynicism and judgmentalism. It’s perfect in describing both the COVID-19 crisis and the political idiocy and finger-pointing that persists in spite of the fact we’re all fighting for our lives.

I’m sure I’ve missed some, but those are my favorites. Feel free to contact me with any you think should be on the list.

Rock on and stay safe.

The big coronavirus lie: "We're all in this together"

“We’re all in this together.”

Of all the insulting, disturbing pieces of propaganda to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, this has to rank near the top.

It’s become a mantra of sorts, parroted alongside the ever popular “this virus doesn’t discriminate.”

“We’re all in this together” isn’t a rallying cry. It’s a means of control disguised as a soothing balm. It’s false reassurance that urges us to follow bad advice, like not wearing masks, and distracts us from the harsh reality: This pandemic is making the health and economic gaps between us grow wider, not narrower.

The person who says, with a plastered-on smile, “We’re all in this together” doesn’t give you a choice. He’s not pressuring or shaming you into conformity, he’s outright assuming it. You’re already “in this.” You can’t decide you don’t want any part of it because, we’re told, the virus doesn’t discriminate, and we’re all in the same boat.

But, in fact, the opposite is true. The virus does discriminate. And, worse, so do we.

The virus discriminates by affecting people with chronic health conditions more than those without them. It discriminates by hitting the elderly far harder than the young. Some geographic regions are harder hit. There’s even research that suggests people with certain blood types are more susceptible. Long story short: We are most certainly not in this together, even from the virus’ perspective.

And we make things worse by discriminating ourselves, as a society. Some people are being forced to choose between their health and their livelihoods, while others are not. The laid-off blue-collar worker who struggles to keep the heat on while self-isolating in a studio apartment is not “in this together” with the independently wealthy jet-setter who doesn’t have to work and can hole up in a six-bedroom, 3.5-bath McMansion.

“We’re all in this together” creates a false sense of buy-in, urging us to ignore the fact that this pandemic affects individuals very differently. In fact, the pandemic has become an excuse to spew propaganda aimed at brushing other forms of suffering under the rug. If “we’re all in this together,” suddenly no one has a right to complain if they can’t afford the rent or can’t find the money to feed their family, because the virus becomes the only valid concern.

“Be thankful you don’t have the virus,” is the unspoken (and sometimes spoken) rejoinder. “If celebrities and politicians are getting it, you’re the lucky one. What do you have to gripe about?”

Yes, some celebrities have gotten sick. Some have died. But these deaths get reported. Meanwhile, thousands of non-celebrities die in anonymity and are left as faceless statistics, except to the few who know and love them. The news reports celebrity deaths, with faces and biographies. Everyone else is just a number. Clinical and impersonal. So it seems like celebrities are being hit as hard (or harder) than everyone else, when in fact, the opposite is true.

Here’s the thing: People at the lower end of the economic spectrum — those non-celebrities whose names are never mentioned — are 10 percent likelier to suffer from a chronic health condition than anyone else. And they’re less likely to seek treatment for it, because they can’t afford it. Without that care, chronic health problems get worse. And remember: People with chronic health problems are being hit harder by COVID-19.

Some workers have paid sick leave, others — generally those in low-paying jobs — don’t. NBA players earning millions a year got tested for the virus quickly, even if they showed no symptoms, while ordinary factory workers, schoolteachers and truck drivers who were obviously sick had to wait.

If you think “we’re all in this together,” think again. We’re not. In the midst of the virus, no one’s talking about the wealth gap or the individual cost of health care anymore, but that doesn’t mean those problems have gone away. The virus has actually made them worse. We’re even less “in this together” than we were before. Far from being the great equalizer, the pandemic has widened the chasm between the haves and have nots that had been growing on its own for decades, and now that same pandemic has become an excuse to ignore it.

Under the false premise that “we’re all in this together.”

That’s like saying plantation owners and slaves were “all in this together” because both were part of the same cruel and dysfunctional economic system in the antebellum South. Or saying the worker who earns minimum wage and company executives who earn millions are “all in this together” because the same firm supports them both. Yet the worker can get laid off at the drop of a hat, while the fired executive gets a cushy buyout and, probably, another gig when some headhunter comes calling.

Yes, the virus discriminates, and yes, so do we. We can stop both kinds of discrimination by focusing on protecting our most vulnerable — to the disease and to economic hardship. In many cases, they’re the same people. But if we continue to turn a blind eye because we believe the false narrative that everyone’s in the same boat, more and more life rafts will keep sinking. And all the while, the privileged few keep will keep sailing blithely along in their luxury yachts, oblivious to the storm that’s wrecking everything around them.