"Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)" / Elvis Costello

In these pandemic days, I find it easy to fall into an apocalyptic frame of mind. What if all those dystopian sci-fi movies about alien invasions are simply coming true, and the coronavirus is just a very special sort of alien? What if this was the plan all along: That we'd populate the world with suitable hosts, only to make ready for the Second Coming of the Microscopic Invaders?
 
In 1991, Elvis Costello proved eerily prescient in this track from the album Mighty Like a Rose, with a machine-gun patter of half-explained references and darkly insinuating imagery.

 It's paranoid as hell -- "The man in the corner of this picture has a sinister purpose" -- with  an insistent drum beat, minor key, and cacophonous background instrumentation. The focus is squarely on the observer: "Wake up zombie, write yourself another book," exhorting him/her/you/me "You want to scream and shout my little flaxen lout" ("waxen lout"/ "Saxon lout" in successive verses). And always that urgent refrain: "Hurry down Doomsday, the bugs are taking over."

You want End of Times? We'll give you End of Times in the middle eight:

Forget about Beethoven, Rembrandt and rock and roll 
Forget about Mickey Mouse, Marlboro and Coca Cola 
Forget about Cadillac, Mercedes and Toyota 
Forget about Buddha, Allah, Jesus and Jehovah

In other words, WIPE THAT SLATE CLEAN.

Years ago -- 1977 -- I had a dream that Doomsday was coming. I was living in England at the time, doing grad school, but the dream was a full-on reenactment of the civil defense drills of my Indianapolis grade school. (Duck and cover, run for the fallout shelter, because the Soviet Union is going to bomb us out of existence.) In my dream, the BBC issued a "kiss your asses goodbye" alert. Why on earth the USSR would be bombing the UK in 1977, I didn't stop to question. Dream Me felt 100% certain that this was The End.
 
So what did I do in my dream? 
 
I went for a walk among the Victorian streets of North Oxford, enjoying the spring blossoms on the trees, the birds twittering in the trees, the whole English at-last-winter-is-over gratitude. And I felt the weight lifting off my shoulders. That essay on Samuel Richardson that my tutor was waiting for? No need to write it at all. The do-or-die exams looming three months away? No need to study for them. The terrifying question of finding a job once I had my degree? Oh, honey, neither you nor the jobs will be here in a few hours.
 
And as I walked around in my dream, I felt so free, so relaxed, so relieved. So what if I never got my dream job? So what if I never married and had kids? So what if I never wrote the book that would be read for generations? None of it mattered. I was going to die in an hour or so -- so PFFFT!
 
I've never forgotten that extraordinary sense of peace.
 
And if the coronavirus comes for me now -- if the bugs truly are taking over -- let's just hope I can meet the Doomsday bugs with that same grace.

Stay safe, wear that face mask, be well.

It's About Time

"Time Has Come Today" / The Chambers Brothers

Quick -- what day is today? (Day of the week, date of the month, whatever.) And how many days has it been since you last talked in person to anyone who isn't in your quarantine home pod? When did you last go to the grocery store? How long since you did laundry? How long since your last haircut (or coloring)? Was the meal you're currently digesting lunch or dinner, or a post-lunch/pre-dinner snack? Has it been 14 days (our coronavirus benchmark) since that last risky foray into unprotected society? Exactly how many weeks/months have you been in lockdown?

In this weird new reality, we operate in an elastic limbo of time -- days blend together, weeks disappear. Yet at the same time we hover over a relentless 24-hour news cycle. How have the Covid-19 numbers changed overnight? Which state is now the hotspot? What new outrageous thing has our Kleptocrat in Chief said or done? What has the Supreme Court weighed in on? What new hero has raised his/her voice? What new victim has been shot in cold blood? Which of our cultural icons has died today? (Me, I'm still grieving Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne, but you could as easily be verklempt about John Prine, Ellis Marsalis, Bucky Pizzarelli, or any of many others.)

Pandemic Time. We joke about it on Facebook, but it's a real phenomenon. 

To comfort myself, I'm re-reading Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain -- hardly escapist reading, but perfect for right now. It's about tuberculosis patients quarantined in a clinic in the Alps on the eve of World War I. Day after day passes monotonously and yet swiftly; holidays succeed each other in surprising speed. And yet the patients are always marking time, with daily temperature charts (check our 14-day quarantine record-keeping) and the doctors' diagnoses/sentences of six months or ten months until they are cured.

With time on my mind, I offer you this 1968 track from the Chambers Brothers, Mississippi gospel singer brothers who, in the spirit of the 60s, ventured into folk and then psychedelia (perfect for these mind-altering times.) It's particularly fine late-night listening.

Hark ye to that timekeeper drummer (live, human, no drum machines here), the way he drives the track, alternately slowing down, speeding up, tick-tocking, vibrating, smashing down. Pick up, too, on the ominous special effects -- the cuckoo clock, the satellite-like guitar twiddles, the screams of the tormented, the cruel laughs of the tormentors. We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

From the echo-chambered background vocals, to the Hendrix-like half-sung testifying of the verses, there's an edge of spookiness, a sense of history trembling in the balance. Social commentary creeps in ("The rules have changed today / I have no place to stay / I'm thinking about the subway"), but in the spirit of the 60s, it was all cool. "I've been crushed by a tumbling tide / And my soul's been psychedelicized." Open your mind to the possibilities, man.

 

It's mesmerizing without being boring; instrumental solos cascade and build, always heading somewhere. I'm on the edge of my seat, riding the drummer's tempo changes, waiting for the singer to step back in and take charge. And when he does, it's with a chuckle and a smile. He's navigating the changes, finding some kind of grace in the midst of apocalypse. Setting an example of how to surf time.

And in these days, when I'm feeling lost in time, sinking into this music track somehow lifts my soul. I hope it does the same for you.

Stay safe and be well....