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.

Movie Review

Action-packed Kraven the Hunter showcases gritty Marvel antihero

Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Kraven the Hunter

Photo by Jay Maidment

Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Kraven the Hunter.

One of the oddest things about the blockbuster era we live in is that while Disney owns the rights to the majority of Marvel comic book characters, Sony Pictures owns the rights to Spider-Man and any affiliated characters. Since they’re sharing Spider-Man himself with Disney, Sony has been trying to capitalize on those rights by making stand-alone films using niche characters that only comic book fanatics would know.

Having exhausted Venom and whiffed on attempts with Morbius and Madame Web, they’re trying again with Kraven the Hunter. Also known as Sergei Kravinoff, Kraven (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is a self-styled vigilante who, as the film tells it, travels the world exacting vengeance on the truly bad people of the world. He’s the son of Nikolai (Russell Crowe), a hard-edged Russian oligarch, and brother to Dmitri (Fred Hechinger), who is relatively weak compared to the rest of his family.

The origin story has Kraven gaining his animal-like powers - including super-strength, speed, and jumping abilities - as a teenager from a mysterious serum given to him by a girl named Calypso (played as an adult by Ariana DeBose) after he was mauled by a lion. The two maintain a tenuous partnership as adults, with Calypso helping him hunt down other villains like Aleksei Sytsevich (Alessandro Nivola) and The Foreigner (Christopher Abbott).

Directed by J.C. Chandor and written by Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway, the film looks and feels enormously lazy, something made merely to hold on to potentially valuable intellectual property. Other than the tense family dynamic between the Kravinovs, little makes sense in the story. Kraven has an indecipherable moral code that has him going after poachers - because he’s part lion? - in addition to other high-powered criminals, with no clear goal except to … get back at his father?

The laziness extends to the action scenes, which feature Kraven being mostly impervious to any damage, whether it’s hand-to-hand combat, knives, or guns. The CGI-heavy scenes don’t even allow moviegoers to enjoy an R-rated bloody free-for-all, as all of the blood splatter is computer-generated, too. Since apparently one Spider-Man villain is not enough, three others make appearances with abilities that are under-explained and CGI that is poorly done.

That’s not even counting Calypso, another Spider-Man villain whose purpose in this film is nebulous at best. Her early connection with Kraven is so coincidental as to be laughable, and her continued reasons for helping him as an adult strain credulity as well. The only saving grace of her presence is that the filmmakers don’t try to shoehorn romance into the plot; perhaps they’re saving that for the (inevitable?) sequel.

Taylor-Johnson has had one of the most prolific-yet-anonymous careers in modern Hollywood, with appearances in big films like The Fall Guy, Bullet Train, and Tenet that have made very little impact. Even as the star here, he fails to hold your attention, with the story and visuals doing him no favors. DeBose has followed up her Oscar win for West Side Story with schlock like I.S.S., Argylle, and this, which doesn’t bode well for her career. At least Crowe gets to chew the scenery.

With a contractual inability to mention the name “Spider-Man,” movies like Kraven the Hunter exist in a weird area that forces filmmakers to make up stories for characters to which most people have no attachment. And just like Sony’s previous efforts, it is a very poor way to spend two hours in a movie theater; avoid at all costs.

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Kraven the Hunter opens in theaters on December 13.

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