Songs and the City

Medical jams: From plastic surgery to cancer to sex changes, it's been rockedabout

Plastic surgery can be an obsession in music too.
Courtesy photo
The band's called Morphine. They have a song titled "Cure For Pain." Yes, theyknow a particular brand of medicine.
Billy Bragg sings about a nurse's hard life.
Hopefully, M.D. Anderson can make Joe Jackson's lament about cancer a thing ofthe past.
It's a Songs And The City. Of course, there's a Token Dylan Track.

Music and medicine seemingly make odd bedfellows, but when you think about how many songwriters moan about illness of the heart and mind it makes more sense. On top of that, narcotics (both of the legal and illicit variety) is another prevalent subject matter. So, now that we've established the connection, here's a playlist featuring music about medicine.

"Heart Doctor" by Lee "Scratch" Perry

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This late period track by the legendary (and legendarily kooky) Lee "Scratch" Perry finds the reggae/dub artist and producer doling out "advice" to his patients. Based on the uncontrolled giggling that starts off the track and the litany of narcotics reeled off during the verses, I would venture to say that this is one type of heart doctor you won't find making rounds at St. Luke's.

"A Nurse's Life is Full of Woe" by Billy Bragg

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An unreleased track taken from the sessions of Talking With the Taxman About Poetry, "A Nurse's Life is Full of Woe" finds Bragg taking on the plight of the working class, a cause he's been singing about for over two decades now. A fiery protest singer who is equally adept at churning out a sublime love song (see "Must I Paint You a Picture" or "A New England" for proof), the Bard of Barking is one of the modern era's unheralded lyricists.

"Plastic Surgery" by Maps of Africa

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You can't have a medical themed songlist without a nod to the vain, and there's no better ode to plastic surgery than this psychedelic thumper by Maps of Africa. Granted, it seems as if things have gone horribly wrong for this patient: "I used to be a person/but I've turned into a version/of my plastic surgery."

"Still Ill" by The Smiths

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If you know anything about Morrissey you know that the illness in question is undoubtedly an ailment of the heart. And by heart, I don't mean clogged arteries. As is true with almost any song by The Smiths, there are multiple interpretations of "Still Ill."

Clearly the Moz is lamenting a fading relationship ("Under the iron bridge we kissed/and although I ended up with sore lips/it just wasn't like the old days anymore."), but he also appears to be making a political dig at the rampant individualism of the Thatcher years ("I decree today that life is simply taking and not giving/England is mine and it owes me a living."). But what to make of the repeated lines, "does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body?"

Depression? Knowing Morrissey I would say that's a safe bet.

"Call the Doctor" by J.J. Cale

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Such a smooth groove, this track from J.J. Cale's 1971 debut finds the laid back bluesman ravaged after a particularly rough night of loving: "A shady lady took all my bread/Ravished my body, lord, and messed with my head/I don't know but I've had my fill/Call the doctor and tell him I'm ill/"

"I Tried to Stay Healthy For You" by Palace Brothers

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Like the rest of the Palace Brother's mysterious debut, "I Tried to Stay Healthy For You" sounds like it was recorded in Appalachia during the early part of the 20th century. Will Oldham's quivering wimper and the slow, waltzing plucked banjo and strummed guitars behind him come across like a long lost Louvin Brother's classic or an unearthed gem from the Harry Smith folk collections.

The lyrics, seemingly written from the point of view of an aging coalminer are equally ancient and haunting, "Sing to them all and I'll stand by/Though jealousy it threatens/Smoke's around my blackened lungs/It is my only weapon."

"Cure for Pain" by Morphine

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Morphine is the band's name!

"Sick Bed Blues" by Skip James

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There's nothing worse than lying in bed stewing with sickness. Skip James's haunting blues bristles with despair, his falsetto moan all high and lonesome. Although the protagonist isn't doing too well physically, it sounds like there's more to the story: "Oh Lordy, Lord, Lord, Lord/I been so badly misused/An treated just like a dog."

"Cancer" by Joe Jackson

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Jackson laments that everything give you cancer and that's no cure and there's no answer. Hopefully M.D. Anderson, the nation's top-ranked cancer hospital, will have something to say about that real soon.

"Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues" by The Kinks

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Nobody captures insulated suburban paranoia quite like Ray Davies. Although written in 1971, this ode to the product of fear-mongering is as timely as ever. "They're watching my house and they're tapping my telephone/I don't trust nobody, but I'm much too scared to be on my own/And the income tax collector's got his beady eye on me/No there ain't no cure for acute schizophrenia disease."

"Hospital" by The Lemonheads

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Although he's best known as an early '90's alternative rock "hunk" who temporarily went bonkers and snorted mounds of blow with Oasis brothers Gallagher, there's no denying that Evan Dando knows his way around a catchy melody. But while his hooks are as sweet as the band's namesake candy, Dando's cheeky lyrics can often be shallow and inane as this medical-related track shows: "There's a disease going 'round the hospital/Green green leaves falling from the trees." Hmmm.

"Lady Godiva's Operation" by The Velvet Underground

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"Lady Godiva's Operation" is a terrifying account of a sex-change operation ("... sees the growth as just so much cabbage that now must be cut away") that goes horribly wrong. The menacing cacophony of the droning viola alongside the pulsing drums and jagged guitars provides the perfect backdrop to the harrowing lyrics. Never has the miracle of modern medicine been described in such gruesome terms. Somebody call a lawyer, I think we have a malpractice suit on our hands.

T.D.K. (Token Dylan Track)

"Love Sick" by Bob Dylan

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The most common ailment that has afflicted musicians, poets and artists for centuries (and which has led to some of man's most breathtaking works of art) can be traced back to the germs spread by love. Dylan's bitter rumination on heartbreak ranks among his finest songs of the past thirty years.

Creed concert review

Creed serve up millennial nostalgia at pyro-packed RodeoHouston concert

Creed concert RodeoHouston

Courtesy of Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo

Singer Scott Stapp serenades the RodeoHouston crowd.

Hello, my friend, we meet again.

I’ve had a torrid relationship with Creed. As a circa-2000s punk rocker, it was implied that I was supposed to hate them. Nevertheless, I enjoyed those hook-laden Mark Tremonti riffs and Scott Stapp’s burly, Bono-grasping vocals, with just a hint of irony deep in the mix. I had “One Last Breath” on a burned mix CD, bunched in with Fugazi, Rancid, and Sham 69. I would skip it as quickly as I could, depending on who was in the car. Driving home from a long day slinging milk in the Kroger dairy cooler? Windows down, Stapp up.

When I began my music journalism career 20 years ago (!!!), I began sticking up for them, much to the consternation of a lot of my fellow writers who were hung up on stuff that was supposed to be cooler and hipper. Creed’s pop-culture zenith came right as The Strokes and The White Stripes were thrust on us by the music press as a counter to post-grunge, which other music writers were categorically allergic to. Remember when our biggest problems in America were bands that were overtly influenced by Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains?

In 2012, I interviewed lead singer Scott Stapp along the way for the Houston Press, and I distinctly recall Stapp being confused on our call that a guy from a smug alt-weekly wasn’t asking him stupid questions or making fun of his leather pants. The band was heading to Houston for a two-night stand at the Bayou Music Center in 2012 when they played 1997’s “My Own Prison” and 1999’s “Human Clay” in their entirety.

Fun fact: “Human Clay” has sold over 20 million albums alone, besting Nirvana’s “Nevermind” and Pearl Jam’s “Ten” by only a relatively small margin. Creed moved more physical CDs when people actually bought music.

Somehow, along the way, people stopped hating Creed and Nickelback, and the hate gave way to pre-social media, millennial high school, and pre-9/11 nostalgia. The similarly maligned Nickelback sold out the rodeo in 2024.

On Wednesday, March 11, I saw junior high school kids wearing crispy new Creed shirts with their parents. Gen Alpha is beginning to get curious about what mom and dad were up to during spring break 2001, and Zoomers are rediscovering Y2K fashions. Haven’t you seen those “Mom, What Were You Like In The ‘90s?” memes?

Creed has been sold out for weeks, drawing 70,007 attendees. If you had told someone 10 years ago that Creed would sell out RodeoHouston, they would have been skeptical. And yet here we are, staring down at a sold-out Creed show. These things run in cycles. Emotions fade. Annoyance turns into wistfulness for the days of Nokia brick phones and 99-cent gas. You can even go on a Creed Cruise now.

Creed hit the stage just before 9:30 pm, an enviable bedtime for most elderly millennials, kicking off with the TOOL-chugalug of “Bullets,” with Stapp and Tremonti making the best use of their stage platforms, crucial devices for any major rock band in the 2000s. Unrelenting pyro shot from the dirt surrounding the stage every time Stapp lifted or flailed his arms like Elvis if he discovered cardio.

The dirge of “Torn” — the second single from My Own Prison — was pyro-less, likely giving the cannons a few minutes to cool off. The sweaty Stapp, at just 52, looks to be in better shape than he did 20 years ago, now sporting a conservative haircut like he stepped out of his company’s stadium suite or finished a twilight run at Memorial Park.

Stapp introduced “My Own Prison” with a preachery pep talk that wouldn’t sound out of place at an altar call at Sturgis. The crowd hung on every emphatic word. Maybe seeing two middle-aged dudes wearing Stryper shirts down on the concourse made more sense than I realized. Is Creed actually just TOOL that accepted Christ? The graphics behind the band could’ve fooled me.

Stapp introduced “One” with a speech on commonalities and love. Looking back, Creed’s lyrics were much too earnest, hitting at a time when critics were still hungover from grunge.

During “With Arms Wide Open,” the rodeo cameras would routinely cut to tattooed dads and rocker chicks in the crowd playing air guitar along with Tremonti and singing their guts out like they did the first time they heard it on 94.5 The Buzz. For a large segment of the crowd, they might have had a Gen-X parent jamming this stuff on the way to school in the morning.

“Are you ready to get higher in here, Houston?” Stapp yells. The place erupts as “Higher” starts. Stapp was in his element, pyro shooting off, his silver jewelry dangling, taking in the crowd, like he didn’t expect such a response.

Possibly the last true rock power ballad ever recorded, “One Last Breath,” got the biggest screams of the night; it might also be the Gen-Z “Don’t Stop Believing” as long as we’re making wildly controversial statements. [Editor’s note: Isn’t that Mr. Brightside? -ES]

Welcome back, Creed, from pop-culture purgatory, and props for what might have been the loudest RodeoHouston show in years.

SETLIST

Bullets
Torn
Are You Ready?
My Own Prison
What If
One
With Arms Wide Open
Higher
One Last Breath
My Sacrifice

Creed concert RodeoHouston

Courtesy of Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo

Singer Scott Stapp serenades the RodeoHouston crowd.

rodeohouston houston livestock show and rodeo concert review

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