Obviously, there’s nothing the least bit funny about the Coronavirus pandemic, although some people are not taking it seriously. I’m not one of them, however. Like all right-thinking people I’ve been staying home as much as possible because it’s the best thing most of us can do to help stem the tide of this crisis. I haven’t worked at anything since March 15th and haven’t seen anybody except my wife Anna and a few neighbours, from a safe distance, since that date. The virus has claimed tens of thousands of lives, threatened to overrun our health care system, crippled the economy and altered the very core of our existence for the foreseeable future. Though it’s the right thing to do, social distancing comes with some heavy dues – loneliness, despair, boredom, restlessness, uncertainty and disorientation. With too much time on our hands and not enough to do, many of us are in need of diversion, of some laughs, or at least a smile or two. That’s the idea behind the following song list, though not all the titles are funny…… unless, like me, you like your humour a little dark. I’ve always loved wordplay – puns, palindromes, anagrams, spoonerisms – and if I don’t do a cryptic crossword every few days I get a little antsy. So, with slime, or rather time, on my hands, I’ve been indulging in one of my favourite word games – warping song titles by altering them ever so slightly to fit a subject: in this case the virus that assails us. A few friends and family members joined in by way of email but to protect the guilty, I won’t mention their names; I’m willing to take the hit for this one all on my own. To avoid too much cheap repetition, I’ve cut down on too many titles which substitute the word ‘glove’ for ‘love’, or ‘flu’ for ‘you’ or ‘blue’. I’ve put the composers in brackets for the more far-out ones. Some of the song titles are unaltered, they worked just as they are. So, without further achoo, here’s the COVID-19 Songbook.
The Disease and Its Symptoms
I Covid the Waterfront
Corona, Corona (think Big Joe Turner)
Viral String Along With You
Lung Aglow and Far Away
Pneumonia Lisa
What’s Novel?
I Guess I’ll Have To Change My Health Plan
I Fever I Should Lose You
The Vaccine Is Clean (Tadd Dameron)
Slimehouse Blues
Tanks A Million
Your Mother’s COVID-19th Nervous Breakdown (Jagger-Richards)
Manha de Coronaval
The Girl From Epidemic
(Come To Me) I’m A Strange Little Parasite
You Leave Me Breathless
Diseasy To Remember
Slime On My Glands
It’s Like Tracing With the Moon
When Your Fever Has Gone
Funk In Deep Sneeze (Hank Mobley)
My Old Phlegm
Crisis (Freddie Hubbard)
Ill Wind
My Concentrate’s On You
CDC Rider
WHO Cares?
NaiFEMA (J. Coltrane)
Seems Like Cold Times
We’ve Got It Bad and Bats Ain’t Good
It’s Tragic
I’m Congestin’
Hackinsack (Mary Lou Williams)
The Breathe and I
Dread Sails In the Sunset
Dire Down Below (Ted Curson)
Pandemica (T. Monk)
Flu Surge (D. Ellington)
Coronabug Waltz
Cough Minor (T. Monk)
Cut Snot For Me
I Hear Mucous
Places
Wuhan, the Night and the Music
Chinese Stockings (Frank Foster)
Bodies In Seoul
When In Rome (stay at home, Cy Coleman)
The Milan I Love
Blue Spanish Lives
They’ve Got An Awful Lot of Coughing in Brazil
A Frightening Tale Sprang in Berkeley Square
Fought ‘Em In New York
Javits Impossible
Upper Manhattan Medical Grew
Central Park Stressed (J. Coltrane)
Flatten in Manhattan
Broadway Malady
New York, State of Bind
Shoo Fly Pie and Big Apple Panic Dowdy
Pennsylvania 6-5-Oh-No-Go!
It’s Coming, Virginia
Disorders At the Borders
Weigh Lockdown Yonder In New Orleans
By the Time It Gets To Phoenix (We’ll Be Grieving)
Memphis In Swoon
Immune Over Miami
Mitigation, the Economy and Anxiety
Strike Up the Ban
Social Distancing Call (Gigi Gryce)
Can’t Take Me Out To the Ballgame (……..sob)
I’ll Wait and Stay
Baby, Won’t You Please Go Home?
The Night Has A Thousand Sighs
Pent-Up House (Sonny Rollins)
Lockdown In the Depths of the 90th Floor
Stir Crazy (Willie Nelson)
Come Offa My House
When Flights Are Low
How Long Will This Be Going On?
Ram Apart Street Parade
Fools Crush In
Will You Still Be Fine?
Binge Watch What Happens
You’d Be So Nice To Stay Home With
Keepin’ Out of Mischief, For Now
My Funky Quarantine
I’ll Remember This April
Up, Up, and Takeaway
One Mourning In May
I’ll Be Home Till Christmas
This Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most
The Isolate, Isolate Show
No Cheek To Cheek
The Un-Nearness Of You
Not Travelin’ Light
I Ain’t Got No Money
The Partying’s Over
I’m Gonna Wash That Mange Right Outta My Hands
Goggles, Groceries, and Greed
All Hoard Nothing At All
(It’s Only) A Toilet Paper Moon
Stockpile Sweetnin’ (Quincy Jones)
Too Closed For Comfort
I Only Sanitize For You
E.I. Didn’t Know What Time It Was
Nice Work If You Can’t Get It
Laughter, You’ve Gone
Let’s FaceTime the Music and Dance
An Orange Coloured Skype
Bummertime
No More Cruise
Cabin Fever In the Sky
Bailout Of Nowhere
I Guess I’ll Hang Those Profiteers Out To Dry
Bleach Me Tonight
Health-Care Workers and Equipment
Heroes, There and Everywhere
God Only Knows Where We’d Be Without Them
They Would Do Most Anything For You (Claude Hopkins)
Runnin’ On Empty (Jackson Browne)
You Stepped Up Like A Dream
PPEasy Does It
Mask Me Now (T. Monk)
Take N95 (Paul Desmond)
3M’s In the Fountain
Between the Devil and the Deep Flu Emergency
Intubation (Bronislau Kaper)
Gloves Are A Many Squandered Thing
Alice Blue Gown
The Morgue ICU
(Ventilators) Where Are You?
Help! (Lennon-McCartney)
Endure My Everything
Swabee
Medication
In the Code Blue of Evening
You Germed the Tables On Me
We’ve Only Just Begun
Till the Shrouds Roll By
Once In A Vial
I See Your Face Mask Before Me
Blue, Turning Grey Over Flu
‘Round Mid-Nightmare
All the Things ER
Dearly Begloved
The Key Players and Politicians
Justin Time
Pence-ativa
Pork Yourself Up
I’m Biden, My Time
Bernie’s Swoon
Birx Works (Dizzy Gillespie)
Fauci-Chi (Charlie Parker)
Oye Cuomo Va (Tito Puente)
For the Moronic Governors Who Still Haven’t Issued Stay-At-Home Orders
Someday, You’ll Be Sorry
Too Late Now
Worry Later (T. Monk)
For Those Disobeying Social-Distancing Orders
Call You Irresponsible
I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Assholes, You (maybe a little harsh, but c’mon, people.)
Are Misbehavin’
Straighten Up and Fly Right
Beyond the Idiocy
Fines Are Dandy
For the POTUS, whose criminally wayward “leadership” in this crisis has reminded many of Alfred E. Neuman, as in “What, me worry?”
The Gentleman Is A Dope
Easter Charade
The Lies of (Not So) Handsome Men (Francesca Blumenthal)
Try A Little Truthfulness
Sometimes I’m Snappy
I’ve Just Been Fakin’ It (Paul Simon)
He’s A Real Goniff Guy
Some Trump Medleys:
I’m Just Foolin’ Myself and Nobody Else But Me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T, This Is All I Ask
Don’t Blame Me, I Didn’t Know About Flu
And one more unaltered song, a fervid wish for all of us in the hopefully not too distant future:
We’ll Be Together Again
In the meantime, everybody…. stay home, stay positive, stay well and let’s help each other as best we can.
© 2020, Steve Wallace. All rights reserved.
Man it’s good to have nice laugh!!!!! Thank you Steve.
Thanks – made this day brighter
Sending virtual hugs to you both 🎤
Great stuff Steve….lifts the spirit in these uneasy and unpredictable times. Levity wins!
Thanks Steve…
Thanks Steve. Keep well, stay safe.
Great list!
I was surprised not to see a song dedicated to Nancy Pelosi for her last minute bill to replace the one already being discussed in the Senate:
Pork Yourself Up
Good one! 🤭
I’m gonna wash covid right outta my hands,
Thanks for the laughs.
I LOVE the categories. Thanks, Steve!
Thanks, Steve, for the great morale booster.
Our wish for Trump – ‘There will never be another you.’
Gawd but you kill me! You’re one of the reasons I bought a cover for my laptop keyboard… some serious spit-takes in here!
In the POTUS category, I’d like to add “All the Things You’re Not” and in the general category, “Spring Will be a LOT Late this Year”. Also, “I’m Sick” (Frishberg) and “I’m Stayin’ Home Baby Now” (Dorough).
“With Ev’ry Breath I Take” I laugh at this list…
😂😂😂
Brilliant. Thanks Steve.
Great stuff Steve! Totally enjoyable read. This is some kind of weird world we are living in…I liked the other one better. Take care!…
Hi Steve, Great to hear from you again. I was afraid that you had succomed to the virus. I love your mordant humour. It brought a ray of sunshine in to the dark days we are living in. As one jazz loving librarian to another take care and keep swinging. God bless you and yours, Robin Oliver-Tasker.
Hi Steve. Nice job. Good to share a laugh during these dark times.
Stay safe and stay healthy. Miss you xo❤️ Lil sis
Terry Sheard
Thanks Steve. Great work and you even categorized them. You should do this again at the end of the year for Christmas songs. Oh wait. Never mind.
Man, Steve, you crushed this tune list. To contribute a bit feels like following a Trane solo in ’58. Having had a friend have a harrowing stay on a ventilator I’m going to avoid all “blue” tunes but I had one dedicated to my stay at home wardrobe: Sweatsuit-Just You, and howzabout one in this vein: I’ll Take You Home Again, Vaccine. Or the other girl, Stephy’s Scope. Bat’s A-plenty? I’m gonna go now, sorry!
So clever Steve!
“I’ll Remember This April”, “One Mourning in May”; jeez, you’re killin’ me, Mr. Wallace!
Hello Steve.
Well I was late reading this post but today I am in Quebec City reading your post be with C Maslowski and we were wondering why you weren’t adding more material to your famous posts? Chris said « It’s because there is no baseball!! ».l i think you are too busy listening to your record collection for the first time in years!
We both wish you to be healthy and active musically.
Cheers! Bernard and Chris.
One Flu Over The Cuckoo’s Nest?
Great stuff Steve.
Now for a memory test for some of your senior readers: Who was the owner
in the mid ’40s of Campus Record store ? This leads to a test of my
memory — that I think he sponsored the ’54 Duke Ellington concert at
Eaton Auditorium.
steve died of covid. rip bassman
Things Ain’t What They Used To Be
Stay healthy, Steve and Anna