The COVID-19 pandemic was war, and I served in a foxhole. I survived, in part, by drowning my sorrow in song—music I abused as if it were drugs. I heard “Spaceman” by Nick Jonas today while driving to the hospital, and, at the peak of the chorus, dopamine surged in my brain, making me queasy. My neck hair stood up, and I went clammy. This was not a monstrous rush of pleasure, but one of desperation and panic. It had been a while, but it all—shudder—came back.
Houston, think we got some problems
Find somebody who can solve them
I feel like a spaceman
When the song ended, I parked my car and mentally cataloged the music that carried me through the worst days. I stepped through the doors of the Berkeley Medical Center, a fact that made this all the easier—so much COVID context. Now that the pandemic is over, I have slowly re-emerged as a normal human being, whatever that means. Part of my experience, I have realized, includes flashbacks.
In the awful early days, March-June 2020, “Hello” from Book of Mormon was my personal Dramamine. At the time, I was horribly seasick, floating on a choppy tide of shock. The cheery, missionary singing kept me from heaving overboard and, eventually, inspired me to go above deck, proselytizing for medicine.
Would you like to change religions?
I have a free book written by Jesus!
This comical lyric, sung by Josh Gad of Frozen fame, kept me upright in the tidal wave. I played it as I drove to the hospital, as essential as drinking my morning coffee. Once I experienced this song’s impact, I hit it again and again and again. “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd reached the top of the Hot 100 in March 2020. It became my “walk-up” song, the performance-enhancing anabolic steroid I used to summon strength on hard days—so many I lost count.
I’m running out of time
‘Cause I can see the sun light up the sky
So I hit the road in overdrive, baby oh
The city is cold and empty
I played this song excessively loud, driving excessively fast on empty roads in summer 2020. Honestly, I faked a lot of things at that time—bravery, confidence, resolve. I arrived at the hospital prepared for battle, in large part, from bong hits of The Weeknd. I rode this high into a locked-down hospital.
My three kids were devastated by the pandemic, with my daughter having the worst of it in sixth grade. I grasped for anything that made her excited. “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles was released on May 15, 2020, and she loved everything about it. This pop earworm was a Xanax, a tablet of syrupy bliss—for the briefest time. And I desperately needed it. “Watermelon Sugar” calmed my panic and connected me to Eliza. I lost count of how many times I emptied this pill bottle, pouring it straight into my mouth.
I don’t know if I could ever go without
Watermelon sugar—high
Watermelon sugar—high
The rush was so cool and sweet, and I loved every second of it. I’m a Harry Styles fan to this day, and likely for life.
When social gatherings—vacations, field trips, barbecues—were canceled in the summer of 2020, “Levitating” by Dua Lipa became my six-pack, the song I cracked open after a long day as I dreamed of normalcy. It was not a fancy beer—PBR, a working-class brew, one drunk for effect, not style or taste. If many people in a convenience store at 5:15 PM were jonesing for a tall can, I did the same with “Levitating,” a song whose title explained how I drank it in a long, satisfying gulp. This was maintenance drinking. I pounded this beer to survive combat, crunched the can, and tossed the empty into the parking lot. In a pandemic, stuff happened; I am neither proud nor ashamed.
You can fly away with me tonight
You can fly away with me tonight
Baby, let me take you for a ride
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
I’m levitating
I had strange pandemic moments where I sat on the bench like a lonely old man, one who wistfully dreamed of past glories, or, at least, normalcy. “Jamboree” was my cheap cigar, the kind one buys at Sheetz. I puffed on this Naughty by Nature gem, its gritty nicotine infiltrating my brain.
I wanna see y’all who wanna plan with me
Wave your hands across the land if we family
Say hot-damn hot-damn we wanna jamboree
I dreamed of my 1990s teenage years, saddened my kids missed out on the same because of a goddamn virus. For the first time in my life, nostalgia was profoundly real. Sad and lonely, I took drags off of this tune as I stared across an empty playground.
“I Wanna Get Better” by Bleachers was more than my antidepressant—it was an invitation to group therapy. And—Jesus Christ—did I need it.
So I put a bullet where I shoulda put a helmet
And I crash my car ’cause I wanna get carried away
So now I’m standing on the overpass screaming at the cars…
Hey! I want to get better better better
I want to get better!
I screamed these lyrics in my car on the days when I had—almost—spiraled into madness, stuck in a never-ending virus Groundhog Day. Like any antidepressant, it did not help right away. I kept singing it over and over before it worked. I’m sure of this fact: I looked crazy while doing this, but it eventually made all the difference.
I reached, unconsciously in the early days, for ways to treat my disordered physiology. And once I found music, I smoked every one of these tunes, abusing these songs, and others, to control my symptoms as I fumbled to do my job. These tunes, and others, delivered psychological safety and physiological effectiveness in the same prescription. In 2020, I did not consider any possible end of the pandemic. Or, anything else for that matter. I had no way of knowing their effects would linger inside me to this day, flashbacks from the battlefield.
Ryan McCarthy is an internal medicine physician.
