Flamin' Groovies – "Slow Death" (1972)

I called the doctor

Up in the morning

I had a fever

It was a warning

In the previous 2 or 3 lines, I told you that I have a pretty good idea how I will die.  (I’m guessing my death will be bicycle-related, not fever-related.). But I have no idea when I will die.

If you’d like to know when you’re going to die, all you have to do is click here and enter your date of birth, gender, the country you live in, your smoking history, and your body mass index (or “BMI”).  The Death Clock will use that info to predict the exact date of your death.

Do I plan to utilize the Death Clock myself?  No siree Bob!  I can’t imagine how horrible it would be to know exactly how long one is going to live.

Oh, sure . . . I know that there is virtually no chance that I would die on the date predicted by the Death Clock.  But that date would be there in the back of my mind – and as that date got closer, you betcha it would bother me.

It would bother me a lot.

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Earlier this year, the Washington Post published an article about a recently-published best-selling novel titled The Measure.

What’s The Measure about?  From the Post:

[The book] opens with quite the plot twist.  One morning, everybody on the planet wakes up to a surprise at their front door: a small wooden box, personally engraved, with the words: “The measure of your life lies within.”  Each box contains a string whose length determines the length of the recipient’s life.

The characters now face a gut-wrenching decision.  Do they open the box and find out how long they will live?  If yes, what will they do with that knowledge?  If not, which means they’re choosing not to know, will they live any differently?

The author of that Post article believes that those characters in the book who know they aren’t going to live a long time may actually be the lucky ones because they will likely be inspired to make the most of their remaining years.  He quotes with approval one of the novel’s short-string recipients:

It’s easy to look at our time together and think that we were so unlucky.  But isn’t it better to spend ten years really loving someone, rather than forty years growing bored or weary or bitter?

I’m not qualified to comment on whether that character is right or wrong – at least not yet.

All I know is that I want no part of knowing what day I’m going to die.  Surprise me!

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The Flamin’ Groovies released “Slow Death” as a single in 1972.  It was written by Cyril Jordan and Roy Loney (who left the band shortly after the song was recorded) and was produced by Dave Edmunds, who later produced the group’s best album, Shake Some Action.

Chris Wilson, who took over as the band’s lead singer when Loney left, had this to say about “Slow Death” when I interviewed him in 2013:

We thought "Shake Some Action" might be a single.  However, our record company [United Artists] had other ideas and released "Slow Death" as our first single.  We thought it was an album track, not a single.  We should have stuck to our guns.  If "You Tore Me Down" and "Shake Some Action" had been released as singles in 1972 rather than "Slow Death" and "Married Woman," who knows how things might have turned out?

Click here to listen to “Slow Death.”

Click here to buy the record from Amazon.