G. Wayne Miller: Author, journalist, director of Ocean State Stories, and co-host & co-producer of national PBS/SiriusXM show Story in the Public Square. Visit me at my author's site
I interviewed Joe Biden by telephone in 2009 for An Uncommon Man: The Life and Times of Senator Claiborne Pell, the biography I was writing that was published in 2011.
Biden was 66 years old.
How much has changed since then.
Originally published in The Providence Journal on July 12, 2021.
COVID-19 theme songs? Many fit as the pandemic changed since earliest days.
The Providence Journal
As The Journal’s health-care reporter, I have been covering COVID-19 since January 2020. Early on, I began to wonder:
If the coronavirus pandemic had a theme song, what would it be?
My choices changed as the months passed and Rhode Island and the world experienced surges, emergency orders, and a devastating toll in lives and jobs lost.
More recently, of course, Rhode Island’s high vaccination rate has helped us to a summer much better than last year's. There are reasons to believe again in ordinariness, and with that in mind, let me share my evolving nominations for theme songs, starting in March 2020, when I wrote my first #coronavirus Reporter’s Notebook, “Thoughts on living in a state of dystopia.”
In it, I referenced Stephen King, my favorite fiction author, and his 1978 post-apocalyptic novel “The Stand,” about a global pandemic. It became a popular TV mini-series in 1994, with songs including Barry McGuire’s cover of “Eve of Destruction.” King himself played guitar for the mini-series rendition of the song.
“Eve of Destruction” is my pick for the early-pandemic theme song. The Barry McGuire cover was released in 1965, during the Cold War and the debacle of Vietnam, but its sentiment captured the mood of late winter 2020.
Can't you feel the fear that I'm feeling today?
If the button is pushed, there's no running away
There'll be no one to save with the world in a grave
Take a look around you boy, it's bound to scare you, boy
By the end of spring 2020, more than 16,000 positive cases of coronavirus disease had been reported in Rhode Island (more than 2 million in the U.S.). The death toll in Rhode Island surpassed 850. Restrictions prevented relatives and friends from visiting loved ones who were dying in hospitals, and wakes and funerals were severely curtailed.
James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” fits for a theme song then, with its haunting melody and lyrics, including these:
I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again
The gloom deepened when, in late July 2020, deaths surpassed 1,000.
Lana Del Rey’s “Summertime Sadness” was on my mind then — and during August and September. The song is the story of two deaths by suicide, but the lyrics speak more broadly to loss in general. They also, to me at least, capture the mental-health crises that so many have experienced, a topic I have frequently explored in my reporting.
Think I'll miss you forever
Like the stars miss the sun in the morning sky
Early autumn 2020 brought hopeful developments, including the reopening of some schools, but public-health experts were warning of a possible new surge ahead (they were right). COVID continued to cause unprecedented economic suffering for many. Green Day’s “Wake Me Up When September Ends” gets my nod for this period of the pandemic.
Here comes the rain again
Falling from the stars
Drenched in my pain again
As the last month of 2020 began, vaccines were not yet available. Another terrible holiday season seemed on the horizon (it was). What better song for December 2020 than B.B. King’s “Everyday I Have the Blues”?
Everyday,
I have the blues
Ooh everyday,
Everyday,
I have the blues
The first shots of the Pfizer vaccine were administered in Rhode Island on Dec. 14, to Lifespan front-line workers. The next day, Care New England employees rolled up their sleeves. Can’t find a better song for expectations than Carrie Underwood’s “Hallelujah,” as she performed it with Legend.
Let the lonely join together, let them know their worth
Ooh, let the children know
There's a brighter day ahead (let's hold on to hope)
As last winter ended and spring 2021 arrived, the data trends in Rhode Island turned positive. Could there be a better song for the second quarter of this year than Jimmy Cliff’s “I Can See Clearly Now?”
I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Here is that rainbow I've been praying for
It's gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
Which brings me to my pick for overall theme song.
First, a disclaimer: popular though they were, the band that wrote and recorded this song was not one of my favorites when they broke onto the music scene. But when Duran Duran released “Ordinary World” a few years later in 1993, I was enthralled. During the pandemic, I have listened to it again (and again) and the lyrics (and incomparable melody) have become an earworm.
No room to include them all, but consider these in judging whether “Ordinary World” best captures the sadness and hopes of the last year and a half:
Where is the life that I recognize?
Gone away
But I won't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive
Perhaps coincidentally (or not), Duran Duran was featured last week on Today. The Brits performed a new song and announced their intention to tour again next year.
In the music world, at least, that indeed would be an ordinary world.
I invite you to send your nominations for pandemic theme songs, along with a brief explanation of why. I may use them in a future #coronavirus Reporter's Notebook. Send to gwmiller@providencejournal.com, writing “COVID song” in the subject field.
