Stayin' Alive vs. Another One Bites the Dust

Anyone who takes a CPR class now is taught that when you do chest compression you can sing "Stayin' Alive" to get the beat of how often you should press down on the chest.  When they made this change, I heard on the radio a DJ mention that this would work just as well with "Another One Bites the Dust". The other day my daughter was in swim class and over the speakers "Stayin' Alive" came on and I have to admit I kinda looked around with all those lifeguards there for someone to be in cardiac arrest. It got me to thinking about the two songs and how maybe "Another One Bites the Dust" might be the more appropriate song to do when doing CPR. Let's look at the lyrics.

Stayin' Alive
Well, you can tell by
the way I use my walk
I'm a woman's man no time to talk
Music loud and women warm,
I've been kicked around
Since I was born
And now It's all right, it's ok
And you may look the other way
We can try to understand
The New York Times' effect on man
Whether you're a brother or
Whether you're a mother
You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Feel the city breakin'
and everybody shakin'
And we're stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin'
alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive
Well now I get low and I get high
And if I can't get either, I really try
Got the wings of heaven on my shoes
I'm a dancin' man and I just can't lose
You know it's all right, it's ok
I'll live to see another day
We can try to understand
The New York Times' effect of man
Whether you're a brother or
Whether you're a mother
You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Feel the city breakin'
and everybody shakin'
And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin'
alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin'
alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive
Life goin' nowhere, somebody help me
Somebody help me yeah
Life goin' nowhere, somebody
help me, yeah
Well, you can tell by
the way I use my walk
I'm a woman's man, no time to talk
Music loud and women warm
I've been kicked around since I was born
And now it's all right, it's ok
And you may look the other way
We can try to understand
The New York Times' effect on man
Whether you're a brother or
Whether you're a mother
You're stayin' alive
Feel the city breakin'
and everybody shakin'
And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin'
alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive
Life goin' nowhere, somebody help me
Somebody help me, yeah
Life goin' nowhere, somebody help me
Somebody help me, yeah
I'm stayin' alive
[Repeat]

Another One Bites the Dust
Let's go!
Steve walks warily down the street
With the brim pulled way down low
Ain't now sound but the sound of his feet
Machine guns ready to go
Are you ready, hey
Are you ready for this
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat, yeah
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone
and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I'm gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
How do you think I'm going to get along
Without you, when you're gone
You took me for everything that I had
And kicked me out on my own
Are you happy, are you satisfied
How long can you stand the heat
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat, listen
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone,
and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I'm gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
Hey, Oh, take it. Bite the dust hey,
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust, hey, hey
Another one bites the dust, hey
There are plenty of ways
you can hurt a man
And bring him to the ground
You can beat him
You can cheat him
You can treat him bad
You can leave him when he's down
But I'm ready, yes I'm ready for you
I'm standing on my own two feet
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
Repeating the sound of the beat
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone
and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I'm gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
Shootout
Alright

First Stayin' Alive. The only positive things he has to say in the song is that he's a "woman's man" and that he's a "dancin' man" who "just can't lose", though, that does not appear to be the case, as that is what he is doing in the song. All he IS doing is staying alive. He's been "kicked around" since the day he was born and life hasn't gotten any better.  The city is breaking apart to pieces, people are shaking and it doesn't matter whether you're a mother or a brother, all you are capable of doing is staying alive.  Just barely hanging on. He isn't even fighting to live.  In fact he says that "life's going nowhere", then begs for somebody to "help me".  This is a man who is on the verge of giving up on life. Yes, he does say that "he'll live to see another day", but it almost has a question mark after it, or at least a huge sigh. And you really don't want to mention the part about having heaven's wings on his shoes.  Is this the song you want to be singing to someone whose life you're trying to save?

Now let's look at "Another One Bites the Dust". It opens up with a shout of "Let's go!" Then "Steve walks warily down the street" and he his "machine gun's ready to go".  This is a guy going into battle.  He's not giving up. He's a fighter.   A woman has done everything possible to bring him low, but does he take this lying down? No. The bullets come flying out and he's gonna take her down and everyone else involved too.  And he's going to win.  It ends with him taking one after another down and he never gets hit himself.  He's like Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator.  You want the person you're working on to feel that strong.  Invincible.  Like they can take on the world, just like this guy did and win too.  You can always play with the pronouns to fit the situation so it sounds like that person is the one doing the fighting.  And if they believe they are fighting they will and they will want to win, just like Steve does in the song.  In my opinion, this one beats "Stayin' Alive" hands down.

By the way I love both of these songs for precisely the reasons I listed above. The Bee Gees tap into a desperation we all feel at some point in our lives and Queen ramps up up for the fight we must fight.  And yes, both of them hold places in my CD collection.  One day I will make it into the 21th century and get an ipod or and mp3 or mp4 player, but not today.

Cancer Questions

When I was reading the book Make 'Em Laugh by Debbie Reynolds (review to come soon) she told the story of a woman who worked closely with her named Jenn. Jenn had been from Texas just like Ms. Reynolds and even though she was married, she moved to California to work in real estate, as she had fallen in love with the place, and kept up a long distance marriage.  When Ms. Reynold's Vegas act ended and she came back to California and was in need of an assistant to handle things for her, Jenn was there. When Ms. Reynolds heard the news that her long time hair dresser was leaving to be in a Vegas drag show (a dream of his), she told Ms. Reynolds not to worry that she could do her hair and wigs. These two were quite close. In 2012 when Ms. Reynolds went to Colorado to write her autobiography, she brought along Jenn and her husband, among others.  One day Jenn was getting a microwave out of a vehicle to put into the cabin and experienced great pain. She went to a "quick care" type clinic and they gave her some meds for what she thought was just a pulled muscle in her back. What she didn't tell anyone was that the pain was excruciating and that it did not stop the entire time they were there. When they got back to California, though, they all made her go see a doctor who did x-rays and discovered that she had shattered two vertebrae in her back due to the breast cancer that had spread to her brain and weakened her bones. The doctor believed she had had this cancer for about ten years. Jenn was only 44. They put some braces in her back and she tried a round of chemo, but it was too late and she died soon after.

Now some facts. 1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime and men have a 1 in a 1000 chance of getting it themselves. It is more common in black women under the age of 45 and they are more likely to die from it. 85% of people who are diagnosed have no family history of breast cancer.  The older you get the more likely you are to get it. [www.breastcancer.org] Fewer than 5% under the age of 40 are likely to get breast cancer, yet it is the number one leading cause of cancer death in women age 20-59. [www.komen.org].  When I was growing up the doctors told us you went in to get a baseline mammogram at age 35 and then began getting your regular mammograms at age 40. In 2003, amid some controversy, the American Cancer Society stated that women should have their first mammogram at age 45 and then begin regular yearly mammograms.

I don't know why Jenn didn't have a baseline mammogram done at age 35 or one at age 40. Ms. Reynolds says that Jenn didn't have cancer in her family so maybe she felt she didn't need to. Maybe she listened to the American Cancer Society, maybe she didn't. I don't know.  I do know her life could have probably been saved if she had. I did not. I take my health seriously. I had my baseline done at 35 and had my second mammogram a little late as I did not have insurance and needed to save up the money. I had it back in January. The place where I had it done a local theater group had put on a production of the play Calendar Girls and sold actual calendars to raise money for a 3D imaging scanner. Every woman who came in at that time was given a free calendar. It hangs proudly on my wall. It makes me mad that these doctors are telling women to wait to have mammograms when they could save their lives.  It's a painless procedure that only takes a few minutes. Something so simple can be so life changing.  You do not have to follow these guidelines put forth by the American Cancer Society and I urge you not to.

Now, at the other end of the spectrum.  A friend of mine is in her early seventies and her gynecologist told her she didn't need to come in every year anymore. I thought that was odd and was worried, as your chance of getting cancer down there does not go down when you get older. So I browbeat a nurse into spelling it out for me.  It turns out that once you reach a certain age doctors stop telling you to have certain "bothersome" procedures done such as pap smears and colonoscopies.  For one thing, medicare doesn't want to pay for it. But mainly, if you do get cancer, the thinking is that pneumonia or whatever you are likely to get from the treatment of the cancer, or something else entirely, will kill you long before the cancer will. So there is no point in bothering them with these pesky little preventive uncomfortable procedures.  I was floored. It seems they just give up on you when you reach a certain age. And they believe you would want it that way too, but they don't ask you. These doctors don't explain why you don't need them anymore and you're just so happy not to go through them as often that you don't stop to question why. I did not tell my friend this as she would never believe me.

None of this really seems right or fair.  It just seems a way to cut medical costs at the possible expense of someone's life. Every living, breathing life is sacred and we should do everything in out power to protect and save it, not give up on it because it's the easy thing to do, or play the odds with a young person's life.  I am not an age, but a human being and I demand to be treated with respect and courtesy and to not be held to some statisticians chart. I have hopes and dreams of a future just like everyone else and we all deserve to see them come true if it's possible, on our own terms.