Songs about illness

Subject: Songs about illness
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 07:47 AM

There are plenty of songs about death and disaster - but does anyone know songs about illness?

[Some song titles in this thread have been converted to links by a Mudelf.]

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: Musket
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 07:50 AM

Love hurts?

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 10:17 AM

Disco Fever?

Try a google of

songs about illness

It's enough to make ya sick!

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 10:30 AM

"Christopher Robin had Sneezles and Teasles, They bundled him into his bed. They gave him what goes With a Cold in the Nose, And some more for a Cold in the Head" ===

Is that one of the A A Milne poems with settings by Fraser-Simpson? I have some dim recollection of having heard it sometime.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: Beer
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 10:38 AM

Alcoholism is considered a disease by some. So I guess this song would be a fit.
"I Don't Remember Loving You". by John Conlee
http://youtu.be/cHEiv0q_26I

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: Leadfingers
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 11:01 AM

Leon Rosselsson wrote a delightful song called 'Hangover'

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 11:14 AM

There's always T.B. Blues.


Jay

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 11:37 AM

Just a few off the top of my head:

"Rocking Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu"
"Rheumatism Blues"
"Jake Leg Wobble"
"Black Lung"
"Going Down Slow"

Hoot

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 11:49 AM

The sick note by The Dubliners

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 12:04 PM

From The Guardian

1 Flu Season - Kid Koala

2 Terrible Operation Blues - Big Bill Broonzy

3 Cardiac Arrest - Madness

4 Collarbone - Fujiya & Miyagi

5 She's Lost Control - Joy Division

6 I've Got You Under My Skin - Neneh Cherry

7 The Drugs Don't Work - The Verve

8 TB Sheets - Van Morrison

9 Comfortably Numb- Pink Floyd

10 Chemo Limo - Regina Spektor

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: GUEST,999 -- from Yahoo Answers
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 12:09 PM

"Far Side Banks of Jordan" by Johnny and June Carter Cash
"September When It Comes" by Roseanne Cash
"Fancy Funeral" by Lucinda Williams

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: olddude
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 12:13 PM

One I wrote called Flowers on the Moon
Flowers on the Moon

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: GUEST,Ioan
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 12:18 PM

"Coma" by Guns n' Roses is worth a listen.

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 12:24 PM

He Fades Away by Alistair Hulett

He fades away
Not like leaves that fall in autumn Turning gold against the grey
He fades away
Like the bloodstains on the pillowcase That I wash every day
He fades away

Goodbye Monday Blues by Si Kahn

Goodbye Monday blues
Goodbye card room fever
Cotton dust has got my lungs
You know I'm bound to leave you

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 12:32 PM

Roll on the Day by Allan Taylor

Every night you fight for breath
Roll on the day
It hurts so bad, you wish for death
Roll on the day

Roll on the morning, roll on the day
I hear the old man softly praying
Roll on the day

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 01:03 PM

He floated up the river, he floated down the lake. And now Miss Lucy's baby has got a belly ache.
Miss Lucy called the doctor, Miss Lucy called the nurse. Miss Lucy called the lady with the alligator purse.
"Measles." said the doctor, "Mumps." said the nurse. "A virus." said the lady with the alligator purse.
"Penicillin." said the doctor, "Bed rest." said the nurse. "Pizza." said the lady with the alligator purse.

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: Bettynh
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 01:10 PM

"All Used Up" by U. Utah Phillips

"Brown Lung Blues" and "Blue Jeans for You, Brown Lung for Me" by Si Kahn

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: GUEST,Doc John
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 01:23 PM

TB Blues - 2: Jimmie Rogers & Lead Belly
Arthritis Blues - Butch Hawes
Dust Pneumonia Blues - Woody Guthrie
Cat's Got the Measles - New Lost City Ramblers
Depression's Gone from Me - Blind Blake
The Fireship - Cyril Tawney. There are other songs about STD's.
I think Lonnie Johnson did Toothache Blues
Doc John

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: GUEST,Azoic
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 01:35 PM

"He Fades Away" sung by June Tabor."My Young Man" sung by Kate Rusby.

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: NOMADMan
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 01:48 PM

Talking Cancer Blues - Dave Van Ronk

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: NOMADMan
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 01:59 PM

Also, any of the variants of The Young Man Cut Down in His Prime / The Young Girl Cut Down in Her Prime / The Unfortunate Rake / Bad Girl's Lament / Tom Sherman's Barroom / The Dying Cowboy / St. James Infirmary, etc. in which the singer is dying of disease, rather than having been shot.

John

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: Bettynh
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 02:04 PM

From the Carter Family:
Give Me the Roses While I Live

From Doc Watson's singing (though probably not written by him):
Hobo Bill's Last Ride
Hicks' Farewell
Talk About Suffering
Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar
Let the Cocaine Be

From Dave Van Ronk:
Cocaine Blues
Soon My Work Will All Be Done
To All My Friends in Far-Flung Places

If you count addiction as illness, and don't mind non-folk, from the Velvet Underground:
Heroin
I'm Waiting for the Man
Run, Run, Run

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 02:28 PM

How about "Scorn not his Simplicity" Luke Kelly
"Don't give a dose to the one you love most" or "Penicillin Penny" by Dr Hook

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 03:09 PM

And there's also Coming Down With Old VD by Mark Cohen in the DT.

Jay

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: Little Robyn
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 05:16 PM

One of Ewan McColl's radio ballad shows was called 'The body blow'. It was about illness IIRC but I only heard it once and it was not enjoyable. In fact, it was awful!
Robyn

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 06:05 PM

Molly Malone
The sow got the measles and died in the spring??
I think Gentle Annie..other Stephen Foster songs....
Henry My Son
Cod Liver Oil
One of the versions of Bound Down for Newfoundland

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: Crowhugger
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 06:18 PM

Grateful Dead's "Black Peter" is about some kind of fever, also mentions pain, but never says what disease. Could be secondary to a wound too.

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 11:44 PM

She died of a fever
And no-one could save her
And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone...

~M~

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: GUEST,JimP
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 01:26 AM

Pills of White Mercury. But then, that would be covered by John's post, above.

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 02:36 AM

The Enenemy Within

A Radio Ballad - modern stories of the people living with HIV/AIDS. Recorded for the BBC in 2006 and released on CD on 04/09/2006. Re-released digitally by Delphonic Records on 02/03/2010.

1. Unprotected - Jez Lowe
2. The sum of what I am - Chris While
3. Hobo - Karine Polwart
4. Superman - Julie Matthews
5. The Day - John Tams
6. Sticks and stones - Julie Matthews
7. Fire Thief - Karine Polwart
8. Come the Hour - Chris While
9. What will I Tell - Karine Polwart
10. Tablets - Jez Lowe
11. Unprotected part II - Jez Lowe

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 03:05 AM

"Ee Aye Aa Cud Hew" Ed Pickford
"Dust" Johnny Handle
both about Pneumoconiosis (Black Lung)

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 03:44 AM

Medically related: "Cholesterol" and "Erchie Cathcairt" - both by Adam McNaughtan.

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 04:22 AM

You will find several Discussions for

D I A R R H E A

mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=5275

There is the baseball series contained in that thread ....
One, Two, Three, Home and some others

Diarrhea... duke, duke
Diarrhea....duke, duke
Some people think its funny
Butt its really brown and runnny
Diarrhea, duke, duke
Diarrhea, duke, duke

When it comes out of your bum
Like a bullet from a gun

When it runs down your leg
Like a broken, scrambled egg

If you're climbing up the ladder
And you feel something splatter

When your stomach kinda hurts
And you start to get the squirts...

When you're walkin two by two

And your partner smells like poo

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Learned this from a wild, filthy, about 10 year old street urchin, cira 1976-79 at UniCamp where I fascilitated "New Games" and my "Woodsy Name" was "Tweezleywop." I was assigned to eat mess-hall with his group. While waiting to go in there were many songs. If the wait was too long - this little rapscallion would break into the DIARRHEA song .... and we would be quickly ushered inside.

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 04:32 AM

LEPROSY

Found in this thread - mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=85399

And

Doctor Iron Beard

Found in this thread - mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=13844

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: Joe_F
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 03:08 PM

"A Sick Bed" & "Cholera Camp" by Kipling.

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: Genie
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 04:29 PM

"He got the chills and he got 'em bad.
I lost the best friend I ever had." (Goebel Reeves, "Hobo's Lullaby") [or Tom Paxton, "Ramblin' Boy"]


And isn't there a song "Cat Scratch Fever?"

And from "Guys And Dolls" there's the quintessential song about sniffles, coughs & runny noses: "Miss Adelaide's Lament".

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: Genie
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 04:59 PM

This one's about illness brought on by environmental hazards endured by migrant workers:
Tish Hinoja, "Something In The Rain".


And Greg Brown's song "The Train Carrying Jimmie Rodgers Home" says "... Consumption's claimed his life ... ".


Then there's this:
"The preacher came by with a tear in his eye
And he said that his wife had the flu.
We told him he ought to give him a quart
Of that Good Old Mountain Dew."

Or this: [It's in the Book]
"Mrs. O'Malley down in the valley
Suffered from ulcers I understand.
She swallowed a cake of Grandma's Lye Soap,
's got the cleanest ulcers in the land."


And from "Found A Peanut" there's this:

"'pendicitis, 'pendicitus, 'pendicitus just now,
Just now I got 'pendicitus ...

Called the doctor, called the doctor, ...

Operation, operation ...

Died anyway, died anyway ... "

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 05:59 PM

He got the chills and he got 'em bad
They took the only friend I had.

Isn't that Tom Paxton's Ramblin' Boy?

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: Genie
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 06:03 PM

Duh. You're right, henry. I get those two songs mixed up (unless I sing through a whole verse or so).

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 06:09 PM

Here's a classic;

What do you get when you kiss a guy
You get enough germs to catch pneumonia
After you do, he'll never phone you
I'll never fall in love again

Lyrics proudly claimed by Burt Bacharach
Music by Hal David

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: Genie
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 06:36 PM

That's a good one.
Actually, though, Bacharach is the composer, Hal David the lyricist. At least that's the norm with Bacharach/David songs.

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 07:22 PM

Thank you - and of course it should be 'never phone ya'.

Subject: RE: Songs about illness
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 07:33 PM

I didn't see Hard Hard Times in the discussion.