Issues — COVID-19

It is as if a vacuum has pulled loved ones out of families’ lives. One day, everything is normal. The next, they may be in a hospital but cannot be visited. Then they are gone, without even a glimpse goodbye.

In the age of COVID-19, it is good to think about some ways we have thought about illness in our music.

A pandemic is never only about biological contagion. Much of what we feel, think, and do—far more than I want to admit—is the product of what we perceive or unconsciously mimic in the world around us. Laughter, yawns, ideas, courage, and panic. All of that is contagion.