Fight Songs
I was, again, going through the journal that I kept while being treated for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and I found notes I had made on what songs I wanted to put on a Chemo Mix. These were songs to keep me in an “fight-like-hell” frame of mind while I endured drugs, radiation, and spinal shots while going through Maintenance Chemotherapy.
First, it’s important for me to say that music has always been a big part of my life starting with my first exposure to rock’n’roll when I was in third grade. A neighborhood friend, Eddie Farley, had a 45 rpm of Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog” with “Jailhouse Rock” on the b-side. The sound, the bounce, the beat, and the drive of the record immediately hit me.
There was a rebellious, almost subversive energy to those two songs that really stuck with me. It was not at all what I heard on the “Electric Company” or “Sesame Street” or the Saturday morning cartoons I watched. (Although it has to be said that is was through “Bugs Bunny” and the “Pink Panther” that I got exposed to classical, opera, jazz, and ragtime.)
At the same time, my parents were playing records by The Beatles and The Kingston Trio. I was enthralled by the harmonies and the beat of “She Loves You” and “Help.” The Kingston Trio exposed me to some amazing musicianship and the dark lyrics that often went hand-in-hand with traditional folk music.
“What is this that stands before me…?”
In grade school, while everyone else was listening to disco, I had moved on to the Blue Őyster Cult, the WHO, and Led Zeppelin. But it wasn’t until I heard Black Sabbath in the fifth grade that the jaws of rock just leaped out of the sea and swallowed me whole.
“What is this that stands before me…?” from the song “Black Sabbath.”
It was more than the doomy crunch of Tony Iommi’s guitar, the thunder of Geezer’s bass, the primal pounding of Bill Ward, or Ozzy’s sometimes (very) unsettling chant. There was a certain malevolence to Black Sabbath; a rebelliousness and attitude that plainly spoke.
“Damn right,” it said, “we are not the Bee Gees. And if you don’t like what we have to say, well, fuck you. We don’t need you.”
I fell in love with metal and devoured all I could – Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Mötörhead, and so on. I branched off into some pop metal in high school (hey, it was the 80’s and some damn good tunes and musicians came out of that era) and still loved my classic guitar-driven rock by Eric Clapton and the Allman Brothers and the like. I loved the voice of Paul Rodgers, which made me a lifetime Bad Company fan. I loved Zeppelin’s trippy dirges like “No Quarter” and the fury of Deep Purple’s “Speed King” and “Highway Star.” I loved the barely in-control vibe of Aerosmith’s “Train Kept a Rollin’” and “Seasons of Wither.”
But heavy metal was so much more than slick guitar work for me. It had an attitude that made even made an Altar Boy and Eagle Scout from one of the wealthiest of Boston’s ‘burbs feel like an outlaw.
Making the Cut
It shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone who just read the above to learn that my Chemo Playlist contained some the loudest, fastest, meanest music ever produced. It included Mötörhead, Accept, AC/DC, Rob Halford, Bruce Dickinson, Judas Priest, U.D.O, Flogging Molly, Thin Lizzy, Aerosmith, and Iron Maiden’s “The Trooper,” which would become my official “fight” song.
Many of these songs where not the most positive. In “The Trooper,” the protagonist dies in a hail of gunfire. Flogging Molly’s “Save the Flag” is about the darkest side of Ireland’s Catholic Nationalism. Mötörhead’s “On Your Feet or on Your Knees” rages against the mass media. Judas Priest’s cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Green Manalishi” is about someone being tormented by a demon. In fact, the only one that was vaguely positive was Lizzy’s “Fighting My Way Back” and, for those of us who love Lizzy know that Phil Lynott’s tunes – even if they are about victory – were always sad, mournful, and tinged with a hint of self-destruction.
One of the best “fight” songs ever composed: Thin Lizzy’s “Fighting My Way Back”
In the hospital, I would listen to Iron Maiden’s “Piece of Mind” while getting radiation. One of the nurses asked me why, while enduing radiation therapy, I could listen to a song called “Die With Your Boots On”?
My Answer
It’s an understandable question. Why go with metal? Hard rock? Celtic punk? Why not stick to nice, healthy, pop tunes with positive messages of empowerment and total victory?
Because, for most of us, our mortality is very much an abstraction. We know, in the back of our minds, that we are all going to die – someday, at some time, hopefully in the far future.
For me, to survive treatment, I had to come to terms with my mortality and the frailty of life. There was no guarantee of success or survival for me. The whole transplant process could kill me regardless of how good a match I found – if indeed I could find anyone. I was very mortal. Just as bad, worse mostly, was that I would always be grieving for my younger son Aidan, for what he was and what he could have been. He had died in a tragic accident just was I was starting treatment. With all this uncertainty in mind, I had to start on a very long, very hard road.
I think that is why songs like “The Trooper” always rang more true for me emotionally than say, “Eye of the Tiger.”
Even in high school, I always, to a degree, knew the world had a dark side. And I also knew I needed, even wanted at times, to understand it in some way.
The Power of the Music
Music, like all art, has a certain power. It feeds the soul and the mind. It brings you to places of peace, inspiration, despair, and joy. Whatever music works for you, be it pop, metal, disco, hip-hop, or country, stick with it in the hard times. Embrace it. Let it distract you. Trust me, you’ll have enough to worry about.
So gather your CD’s and iPods and sift through them like an archeologist looking for a hidden artifact. You’re sure to find some gems in your collection. Write out that perfect mix for your workout, your stress relief, your anxiety, your housework, homework, and your commute. It, in my very humble opinion, is time well-spent.
No matter what, metal and hard rock will always have a special place in my heart. A constant companion since childhood, the music was something I held onto during treatment. It was something that I had always relied on for strength and support – even as much as say, the Catholic Mass. It was, is, that big a part of my identity. It helped keep me sane and in “fight to the end” mode, which I needed.
“You better stand, there’s no turning back!” Iron Maiden’s “The Trooper”
A few months after I left the Brigham, I purchased an Iron Maiden Hockey Jersey with Eddie, Maiden’s rotting corpse of a mascot, clad in the uniform of a British trooper from the Napoleonic Wars. Eddie is surging forward with a bloody Union Jack in one hand and a bloodier saber in the other.
Silly as it may sound, when I feel I need to fight, that image appears in my mind and it always inspires me to fight on.
Chemo Playlist:
- “Broken” (Bruce Dickinson)
- “Thunderball” (U.D.O)
- “Beat the Bastards” (Accept)
- “Die Young” (Black Sabbath)
- “The Green Manalishi (With the Two Pronged Crown)” (Judas Priest)
- “The Trooper” (Iron Maiden)
- “Fighting my Way Back” (Thin Lizzy)
- “On Your Feet or on Your Knees” (Mötörhead)
- “Save the Flag” (Flogging Molly)
- “Train Kept a Rollin’ (Aerosmith)
- “War Pigs” (Black Sabbath)
- “Highway to Hell” (AC/DC)
- “Hot Rails to Hell” (Blue Öyster Cult)
- “When the Levee Breaks” (Led Zeppelin)
- “The One You Love to Hate” (Rob Halford/Bruce Dickinson)
- “Turn Up the Night” (Black Sabbath)
- “Hallowed be thy Name” (Iron Maiden)