My Top Ten Sick Songs

There's a new issue of Department of the Peculiar out - and you can buy it here.

To celebrate, here's ten songs about being sick... I know, how lovely!


10. Disturbed - Down With The Sickness

This is about as heavy as I get... and it's pretty light for Disturbed.

I have to confess though, I first encountered this song via the Richard Cheese cover version as featured in the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead.

9. Fountains of Wayne - Sick Day

All about office romances that might happen one day...

Contains the pun: Lead us not into Penn Station. Which I like.

8. Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip - Sick Tonight

In which Scroobius gets a sick-bag for a head...

I remember when I was a kid and that
Way before I found beards and caps
Pencils came with erasers that
Could erase your mistakes erase, retract
But in the real world things just ain’t that easy
You can’t take back your mistakes so freely
You gotta take them in think about them deeply
Not ignore them and just move on discreetly

7. Matchbox 20 - Unwell

Not a band I rave about, but I do love this song. I'm not crazy... just a little unwell.

6. The Indelicates - Ill

Their sex is a sickness...

Because you'll never take enough of those pills
You know you're too clever to be mentally ill
You'll never fashion your damaged soul
Because you're too clever to lose control

5. Saint Etienne - You're In A Bad Way

Burnt toast, cold coffee, nothing but Bruce Forsythe on the telly... luckily, we have Sarah Cracknell to make us feel better. 

4. The Smiths - Still Ill

Does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body?

I don't know... but I do know this song inspired one of my favourite Doom Patrol comics.

And, no, sorry, I can't make them Number One every time.

3. Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues

In which Bob invents the lyrics video thirty years before youtube.

See also Radiohead - Subterranean Homesick Alien.


2. Alabama 3 - Too Sick To Pray

Any song that begins thus...

I'm in a lonely room
Hank Williams sings a lovesick blues
Winter's walking up the avenue
But I ain't seen the sunshine since the 6th o' June

...well, it doesn't matter how sick you feel: this'll make you feel better.

1. Tindersticks - City Sickness

One of their finest songs, with a video directed by Jarvis and Steve from Pulp.






So, they were my sick notes... which one makes you feel better?