But Mick (to follow up on blogward's insight), would you have been singing about it if people around you were dropping dead?

I doubt that any pandemic-related songs would have made it to the Renaissance Top Forty. Or top Four Hundred.

But seriously: such ballads may have been written, but I doubt they were much sung. We don't have any truly popular songs about AIDS or Spanish Influenza. Even "The Unfortunate Rake" got switched from syphilis to a gunshot as soon as possible.