Monday, November 29, 2004

Somebody Get Me a Doctor

Over at the extremely brilliant Jimmy Page's Sweater Vest, Mr. Beaujon has been thinking about the sorry state of health care as reflected by popular music: "One of the finest indicators I can think of to show how Americans' attitude toward health care has changed is just to look at pop music. Used to be, a guy in a pop song fell in love, and it was only natural for him to go see the doctor about it. If you were in the Rascals, you were likely to be prescribed good lovin'. If you were in Bachman Turner Overdrive, you were told that any lovin' is good lovin' (what were doctors like back then?). If you were Harry Nilsson, you naturally saw a witch doctor. If you were in Kiss, you pretended to have gone to a medical school that taught you to take your patient's temperature in a most unorthodox manner." He is worried that he "can't think of any recent examples of pop songs in which people go to the doctor." I think this is an excellent point. In a somewhat-related thought, I wonder when email will become as much of a fixture in pop songs as the telephone has been over the last fifty years or so. Maybe I'll write a song about consulting WebMD about my feelings for a girl I've only spoken to by email.

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