I had a health scare last week.

No, it wasn’t COVID-19 related, but having any kind of health scare in the midst of a global pandemic is truly terrifying, let me tell you. If you hear that people are staying away from hospitals and emergency rooms even when they need life-saving care because they are scared they will get this virus, believe it. I went through the same mental back and forth.

Last Saturday I started experiencing chest discomfort. I wouldn’t call it pain – on that vaunted 1-10 scale, it was about a 1. But it was really uncomfortable. I looked up the symptoms of a heart attack, and then – I think partially because I’d looked them up – I started experiencing them. I was fatigued. I had a spell of lightheadedness followed by sweating. The discomfort felt like it was radiating.

So after two days of hoping it would get better, I went to the emergency room on Monday night. I had my own mask, but the kind nurses gave me a medical mask on my way in. I had a chest x-ray, some blood work and an EKG. All of them showed no problems, and they were about to let me go home and figure it out when my second EKG turned up something irregular. The reading showed an inverted T wave, which could mean a lot of things. But one of the things it could mean is that my heart was not getting the oxygen it needed to keep functioning properly.

I knew when they sent the supervising physician to tell me this that things were potentially grave. (I’d also just heard the patient in the next exam room receive his positive COVID-19 diagnosis, so that only added to my unease.) The hospital staff kept me overnight, hooked up to a heart monitor. That was definitely not an easy night’s sleep, and I only managed a couple hours. I don’t remember my dreams, but I probably dreamt of angiograms and open-heart surgeries.

On Tuesday I had what’s called a stress echocardiogram, which is basically an ultrasound of your heart. The lovely staff (and I must emphasize that I got great medical care, as safe as possible) took little videos of my heart, then made me run for 10 minutes on a treadmill and took more videos. The idea is to force your heart to work hard, because it is only then, when it is pumping hard, that the doctors can see whether there are blocked arteries or damaged areas.

And after four more hours of waiting and stressing, I learned that my heart looked fine. I still have no idea what that second EKG turned up – I have read stories of faulty EKG readings, and I hope this was one – but my chest discomfort was not caused by any kind of heart failure. I cannot even describe to you the relief I felt at that news, since of course my major worry was needing open-heart surgery during a pandemic. Catching COVID while my heart was weak and recovering from major surgery sounded like a death sentence to me.

Long story short, with heart issues ruled out, my doctor and I have been trying to track down the problem. Digestive issues and muscle inflammation, combined with crazy amounts of stress, seem to be the culprits. All of those things can feel like a heart attack, and I’m happy I went in and got checked out. Another week or so and I’ll be certain I didn’t catch COVID-19 while I was there, too. Fingers crossed.

So, that was frightening. Coming home after my hospital stay felt like getting a second chance at life, or at least at avoiding heart disease. Everything felt new, in a way. I started thinking about all the new music I wouldn’t have had the chance to hear, that now I would get to enjoy. And then I started considering which album would be the first one I experienced after my health scare. What new music would I use to welcome myself to this next chapter of my life?

Of course, I knew it had to be Danzig Sings Elvis.

I mean, just look at those three words together. Danzig. Sings. Elvis. Truly these are the days of miracle and wonder. I assume Glenn Danzig needs no introduction. Founding member of the Misfits, leader of Samhain and of his own eponymous band, the guy who sang “Mother.” Danzig’s place in punk and metal history is assured – he’s an absolute legend.

He’s also one of the least self-aware human beings on the planet. For a couple decades now he’s been on a steep decline, and he still acts like the Glenn Danzig of the ‘80s. He still takes “scary” photographs with scantily clad women at age 64, and he still believes people take him seriously as some kind of horror-punk auteur. Last year he premiered his directorial debut, Verotika, and he was stunned that the audience laughed at it. By all accounts it’s terrible, much like Danzig’s albums since the original band broke up.

One way or another, Danzig Sings Elvis was bound to be enjoyable. Either it would be a fun little romp, or it would be a glorious train wreck. I don’t think anyone is surprised that it turned out to be the second one, but it’s pretty stunningly bad. Danzig has somehow produced 40 minutes of music that even defy the kitschy thrill of Danzig singing Elvis songs. This is utterly impossible to enjoy, even as a winking joke. And it’s Danzig’s total lack of self-awareness that does him in here, repeatedly.

The first thing Danzig should know about himself is that he can no longer sing. This has been evident for a while, at least since Circle of Snakes, but here the voice is on full display, and it’s painful. Gone is that magnificent bellow that burst out from the din of the Misfits, or that drove the original Danzig band’s gothic metal blues. He literally cannot hit or hold notes any longer. You may think I am exaggerating, but I am not. His voice is spent, shot, completely destroyed.

But he clearly doesn’t know this, or can’t hear it, because he spotlights that voice here, giving himself minimal instrumentation to hide behind. Danzig produced this album and played almost every instrument on it, so he has no one to blame but himself. There’s almost nothing to these tracks – some minimal electric guitar, single piano notes, occasional hi-hat. Nothing to distract from the creaking, blown-out voice. It’s even in the title. Danzig wants you to hear him sing these songs, as clearly as possible.

His lifelong Elvis Presley fandom works against him here, too. If you’re expecting an album of revved-up rockabilly covers, you’re in for a major disappointment. Danzig has scoured the Presley catalog for unlikely song choices, and nearly all of them are slow ballads. I’m talking songs like “Pocket Full of Rainbows” and “Lonely Blue Boy,” tunes that Presley could truly dig into as a world-champion crooner. But as we’ve previously established, Danzig is no longer any kind of crooner, and the slower and more plodding the song, the worse Danzig sounds trying to sing it.

Which leaves us with two kinds of outcomes here: the merely bad, and the utterly atrocious. “Fever,” for example, is merely bad. Popularized by Peggy Lee, the song was covered by Presley on his 1960 album Elvis is Back. Danzig’s version is the worst I’ve ever heard, but by comparison it’s listenable. “First in Line,” on the other hand, is abominable. This ballad, from Presley’s second album Elvis, finds Danzig simply unable to meet the melody line. Like, at all. It’s like those early-in-the-season episodes of American Idol, where they bring out the horrible singers and humiliate them on television. It’s that bad.

What’s worse is that this should have been an easy win. Had Danzig made this album in 1993, with the original Danzig lineup, it would have been unstoppable. Even with his current capabilities, if he’d just chosen songs with a pulse and rocked this up a little more, it would have been better. But he’s so self-serious that he simply couldn’t play this concept up. And by the end, I was thankful that Elvis was not around to hear it. (Or is he…?)

So yes, Danzig somehow made an album on which he sings Elvis songs, called Danzig Sings Elvis, and did so without any irony or humor or even any recognition that this should be fun. It’s a slog, a dire mess, a hunk-a hunk of burning crap, and I cannot recommend strongly enough that you do not put yourself through it. And yet even this – even this unbelievable misfire – even this made me feel grateful that I get to hear music for at least another day. Even terrible music. It’s all a gift.

Or something. There’s no real lesson here, I guess, except that life can change in a minute. Stay safe and healthy, everyone.

Next week, I get to play catch-up with some decent recent releases.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

“On I go, not toward or away
Up until now it was day, next day
Up until now in a rush to prove
But now I only move to move…”

Have you ever had a deep-diving conversation with someone you’ve known for a while? A conversation that brings so many new things to light, that offers you so many new windows into this person’s mind and heart that you feel like you’re seeing them for the first time?

That’s the experience I had listening to Fiona Apple’s extraordinary new album, Fetch the Bolt Cutters. Apple has been making great music for a long time – I saw her on the first Lilith Fair in 1997, a year after she issued her still-celebrated debut, Tidal. I’ve enjoyed all of her work. But nothing – not even 2012’s fantastic The Idler Wheel… album – prepared me for Bolt Cutters. It is the sound of a supernaturally talented artist finally taking control of every element of what she does, and finally feeling free enough to be exactly who she is.

The result is like meeting her again for the first time. This is a jaw-dropper of an album, so far-and-away the best thing I have heard in 2020 that it’s almost comical. Its spirit is summed up in the lines I quoted from the final track, “On I Go.” This is a record about liberation, about freeing yourself from the shackles that bind you, even and especially if those shackles are other people. Its title comes from a line spoken by Gillian Anderson’s character in The Fall, as her investigations lead her to a captive kidnapping victim. But it’s about escaping every abusive relationship, every bad situation, even every mental weight holding you down.

True to that theme, this record sounds liberated. Apple recorded it at home, with help from her bandmate Amy Aileen Wood, and you can tell she reveled in the complete freedom. The Idler Wheel was recorded similarly, with drummer Charley Drayton, but even that album sounds self-edited compared to this one. Fetch the Bolt Cutters presents us with an artist entirely unafraid to be herself on record. There’s a spontaneity to it, but also a sense that she’s in total control of every element of it. It sounds ramshackle but also perfectly realized.

Like Idler Wheel, this one is percussion-heavy, but in addition to your standard drums, Apple and her cohorts play chairs and silverware and other household objects. The percussion bed on the title track is intricately arranged, but it’s also clearly made by banging found objects. It supports a bass and an organ, and that’s all it needs. And then guest vocalist Cara Delevigne’s dogs start barking for a full minute and Apple leaves it in, and it works. The whole record sounds like that, like a complex patchwork carefully assembled from unplanned moments.

And I can’t adequately describe how joyfully free that sound is. This is a record that tackles some heavy subjects, from Apple’s own rape to the way men come between women and keep them from being allies, and you can feel how much work Apple has done to get to the point where she can write these songs, where she can process these topics musically. Somehow she has crafted a record that sounds like the process, that sounds like what it feels like to deal with trauma and see the light on the other side.

This is definitely an album hitting the women in my life a lot more deeply. Part of it is the particular issues she addresses. “Under the Table,” for example, is a very specific song – it’s about a dinner party Apple didn’t want to attend, and her refusal to be shushed instead of calling out another guest for saying something offensive. But its repeated mantra – “Kick me under the table all you want, I won’t shut up” – is basically “nevertheless, she persisted” in song form, a singalong anthem for every woman ever talked over in a meeting, or in a relationship. (The song begins and ends with another great one-liner: “I would beg to disagree but begging disagrees with me.”)

“Newspaper” broaches a topic I’ve never heard in song before. It’s a letter to an ex-boyfriend’s latest girlfriend, forging bonds of solidarity between them. “I watch him walk over, talk over you, be mean to you and it makes me feel close to you,” she sings. “I wonder what lies he’s telling you about me to make sure we’ll never be friends.” It’s a chilling song – she yells herself hoarse on it – and there’s a sense of desperation to it. Whatever this man did to both of them, they are the only ones who know, and this song is one woman reaching out to the only other one who understands.

And a song like “For Her” hits even deeper. Arising in the wake of Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony in the Brett Kavanaugh hearings last year, this piece details a friend’s slow realization of her own rape at the hands of a similarly powerful man. It’s a symphony in 2:44, from the intake of breath at the beginning (as if to say “here we go”) to the multiple drum-driven sections, culminating with the album’s bluntest and sharpest line: “Good morning, good morning, you raped me in the same bed your daughter was born in.”

It is impossible to hear that line – to hear the way Apple sings it, putting every ounce of the fury and pain and floodgate-opening relief inherent in that line into her explosive delivery – and not be affected by it. But “For Her” is not a weighty song. It’s not “Me and a Gun,” as much as I love the way time stops when that one plays. “For Her” rocks, from the rapid-fire vocals to the drums, as if celebrating the hard-won freedom to look one’s rapist in the eyes with clarity. It ends with a choir of layered Fionas singing “you were so high,” and it’s almost breathtaking in its beauty.

This is an angry record, but its genius is that, like the music itself, it is not just that one thing. Apple allows herself to be complex, to contain multitudes, to be fully human in a way we often do not allow our female artists to be. Bolt Cutters is angry, and sad, and joyful, and screamingly funny. (Seriously, this is the funniest record Apple has ever made. I dare you to listen to “Rack of His,” in which she pokes at boasting male musicians, and not crack up. “Under the Table” is funny. The claustrophobic love song “Cosmonauts” is funny. Yes, “For Her” is funny.)

And best of all, it is all of those things all at once.

So while it is steeped in pain, it is also hopeful and empathetic. This is an album about coming through dark experiences and growing from them, so where it is full of rage it is also full of kindness. Opener “I Want You to Love Me” is one of the most open and straightforward love songs Apple has ever written, which means it is also about death and about feeling invisible and being seen. But it’s gorgeous and warm-hearted. “Relay” juxtaposes a line she wrote at 15 – “Evil is a relay sport when the one who’s burned turns to pass the torch” – with her more adult insights: “I see that you keep trying to bait me, and I’d love to get up in your face, but I know if I hate you for hating me I will have entered the endless race.”

And then there’s the monumental title track, which tumbles down Apple’s timeline from middle school (which the glorious “Shameika” also references) to her early career to her bad relationships. She dissects her own self-image, noting what she allowed others to do to her, but she also shows kindness to herself: “I listened because I hadn’t found my own voice yet, so all I could hear was the noise that people make when they don’t know shit, but I didn’t know that yet.” Even as the song culminates in a grand Kate Bush reference, Apple keeps the message clear: you are not trapped. You are not stuck, no matter what situation you are in. No matter what is holding you down. Know yourself, be kind to yourself, free yourself.

Fetch the bolt cutters. I’ve been in here too long.

This record is astonishing, and I could talk about it forever. Having heard it on repeat for several days now, I cannot help but think of it in relation to her previous work. Her catalog now feels to me like a series of steps away from her male collaborators, from record companies who didn’t understand her, from anything and everything that kept her from the driver’s seat. This feels like Fiona Apple becoming who she was always meant to be, both as a person and as an artist. It’s the sound of overcoming, of growing beyond, of rising up as a whole and beautiful human, unafraid to be everything she is.

It’s like seeing her for the first time. I’m immensely glad to have met Fiona Apple, finally, and I can’t wait to hear what she has to say next.

* * * * *

Of course this middling review doesn’t quite say everything I wanted to about this album. I’m still processing it and will be for some time. I want to thank the various women I spoke to about this record, especially Erin Kennedy and Andrea Munday, who shared extensive thoughts on it.

If you want to read Apple’s own words about each song – and I highly recommend you do – check out this enlightening article. (Thanks again to Erin for the link.)

Next week I will still be listening to this, so I have no idea what I will be writing about. Let’s learn together.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

And now we’ve lost John Prine.

I’m not sure I have the energy to give Prine the eulogy he deserves. Many others have already done him justice. If you haven’t seen Elvis Costello’s tribute, for instance, it’s very much worth reading. Prine has long been one of those songwriters that other songwriters love and point to as an influence. His work has always been deceptively simple – his chords are generally basic, his observations straightforward. But dig into his lyrics and the way he delivers them, and you’ll find entire worlds there.

My favorite Prine song is on his first album. I normally resist any suggestion that an artist’s best work is on their debut, since that often indicates that a lifetime of work that followed couldn’t measure up. I don’t think that’s the case for Prine – his songwriting remained consistent, even through his final record, 2018’s The Tree of Forgiveness. Nevertheless, “Sam Stone” is on Prine’s debut, and no other song he’s written hollows me out like that one does. The unflinching story of a war veteran who dies of an overdose, it’s simply a perfect lyric, and when he sings “Jesus Christ died for nothing, I suppose” in his matter-of-fact tone, it hurts even more than if he’d gone for the emotional jugular.

That was Prine through and through. He was never overly sentimental – he was wry and clear-eyed, describing the world he saw. A two-time cancer survivor, Prine was hospitalized on March 26 with COVID-19 symptoms and he succumbed on April 7. His loss is incalculable, and I expect we’ll be hearing about it from the songwriters he inspired, young and old, for a long time to come.

* * * * *

I guess I have to get back to reviewing music at some point, right?

Luckily, we have some. In fact, we have two pretty damn good new records from some old favorites who keep soldiering on. In this time of uncertainty I’m not sure I can think of anything more fitting, in fact, than to talk about bands who just keep at it, year in and year out. I fell for both of these bands in the early ‘90s, which doesn’t seem like that long ago to me. But of course it was. I’ve been a fan of both of these bands for longer than I lived without them, which is strange to think about. They’re both like old friends at this point.

They’re also two of the best live bands anywhere on the planet, which is a sad fact given our current stay-at-home status. I’ve never seen either one live, which is somewhat criminal given their reputations. I’ve based nearly 30 years of fandom at this point on the studio albums, which fans of both bands will tell you is only about a quarter of the story. I know they’re right, and I have no excuse, except to say this: the studio albums have been enough for me for more than two decades, so they must be pretty good in their own right, no?

I’d say so. It was a trilogy of studio albums – Ten, Vs. and Vitalogy – that cemented my lifelong love of Pearl Jam during my high school and college years. Ten came out just before my senior year of high school began, and I didn’t know what to make of it. I was a teenage metalhead just getting into R.E.M., and this didn’t fit into either one of those boxes. Pearl Jam were broody and dark, but ferocious, and in Eddie Vedder they had a singer the likes of which I’d never heard.

Vedder’s low-moan rumble has remained the most compelling aspect of Pearl Jam’s sound, even as they dove back and forth between straightforward rock and interesting experimentation. Their new one is called Gigaton, and it’s their first in seven years, following a decent string of back-to-basics stompers, so you’d expect this to be one on which they stretch out more. At 57 minutes, it’s their longest record to date, and it may be the one with the most swings in style and mood.

Anyone put off by the first single, the Talking Heads-inspired “Dance of the Clairvoyants,” should not worry. It’s the only song like it on the record, and in context it sounds even more awkward than it does on its own. This is the furthest the band reaches here, and the one low point. Everything else, from the whirling dervish of “Quick Escape” to the electro-tinged soundscape of “Alright” to the killer garage rock of “Take the Long Way” to the slower epics that make up the final third, works remarkably well.

There are times here when the band is on fire, and Vedder’s razor-sharp roar matches their intensity. He’s on a tear lyrically, seeking a “place Trump hasn’t fucked up yet” on “Quick Escape” and raging against complacency on “Who Ever Said.” He spits his way through “Never Destination,” which clearly takes further aim at the occupant of the White House: “Some resolution, some justice tied to this collusion hiding in plain sight…” For a band in its 30th year making its 11th album, Pearl Jam sounds recharged here, alive with purpose.

As much as I like all of that material, it’s the closing four tracks that elevate Gigaton for me. The jaunty waltz of “Buckle Up,” the folksy sway of “Retrograde,” the expansive “River Cross,” these songs are among the prettiest the band has given us, and they show just how supple Vedder’s voice still is. But it’s “Comes Then Goes” that does it most for me. It’s the loveliest and simplest acoustic piece since “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town,” and every bit of it works.

Thirty years in, they’re still Pearl Jam, still sticking to their guns when it comes to the foundation of their sound. Gigaton is their most experimental, most diverse work since No Code, but it still sounds like Pearl Jam. They’ve remained remarkably consistent for their three decades, and Gigaton is no exception. Sometimes you just want to hear a long-running band do what they do, and there’s enough of that on this record that it sits nicely next to their best.

Also delivering one of their best is Phish, who surprise-dropped their 14th album Sigma Oasis back on April 2. With Phish I know – I know – that I am not getting the full experience just listening to their recordings. Even their live box sets don’t take the place of being there on the night and watching this band do their thing. I know this. I really only have part of the story.

But I’ve loved this part of the story since I first heard A Picture of Nectar my freshman year of college. People concentrate on the jam-band aspects of Phish, but what I think most people miss is that they’re also kind of a prog band, with intricate arrangements and compositional heft. These four guys can really play, and like one of their biggest influences, Frank Zappa, they feed equally off of tight, difficult arrangements and wild, throw-out-the-map improvisation.

The first four Phish albums bear this out better than any that have come after. 1993’s Rift remains my favorite for its conceptual through-line and its perfect balance of tight composition and spontaneous jamming. Sometime around 1996’s Billy Breathes Phish decided to draw a strict demarcation between their studio and live identities, reserving the thrilling improv sessions for the stage and concentrating on shorter, smaller, even folksier songs for their records. It’s something I’ve grown used to – if I want anything-can-happen abandon, I will listen to a live album.

All of which makes Sigma Oasis such a pleasant surprise. It is the most live-sounding record they have made in many years. I should clarify – the sound here is still crisp, and there are strings and choirs and all kinds of accoutrements here, just as there have been on every album since the late ‘90s. But the feel is surprisingly live, surprisingly alive. And not just in the extended jam sections, although the second half of the 12-minute “Everything’s Right” is pretty spectacular.

This is the first album since Farmhouse to consist entirely of songs written by Trey Anastasio and his frequent lyric partner Tom Marshall, and there’s a maturity and a consistency to these nine songs that hasn’t been present on a Phish record for some time. Better, though, this feels like a single set at a show, each song handing off to the next. There are no throwaways, no novelties. “Leaves” is beautiful, the multi-part “Mercury” shimmers, “Shade” might be Trey’s prettiest soft-rock AM radio winner, “Steam” is a dark shimmy down a smoky alley, and the closer “Thread” plays out half of its 11 minutes with a jam in 15/8. Everything here is serious in intent and execution.

It is, paradoxically, the most grown-up Phish album in ages and the most youthful. I don’t know what happened to spark the band’s reinvigoration here, but this is as good a Phish record as there ever has been. It feels as spontaneous as the decision to release it earlier this month, ahead of schedule, as a way for the band to stay connected during this strange distance. Both in form and content, this is the nicest surprise of my quarantine so far, and I’m grateful for it.

Next week, more music. More music!

See you in line Tuesday morning.

It’s been a bad week.

I don’t say that as if it’s somehow news, or as if my experience has been unique. It’s been a bad week for all of us. This virus sweeping through our country, with the aid of some of the most arrogantly inept leadership I have ever seen, has claimed more than 9,000 as of this writing. It’ll be many thousands more by the time you read this. My state is in week four of sheltering in place, and I’m only going out when absolutely necessary. I haven’t had a real, in-person human interaction for weeks now.

And this is the best case. At least I am not sick. At least no one in my family is sick. At least I am not on a ventilator, alone, fighting for life in an overcrowded hospital. At least I have done everything I can do not to spread the virus to others. Isolation and loneliness is a small price to pay, and I’ll keep paying it. I know you’re all going through the same thing, and it’s strange – we’re all connected, even though we’re kept apart.

I wish we could just talk about music this week. But we can’t. Because among the thousands this virus has taken from us this week are two people important to the art form this column was designed to celebrate, and I can’t let their passings go unremarked. That both of them died on the same day – Wednesday, April 1 – is just a sad coincidence.

First is the great Ellis Marsalis, patriarch of the Marsalis family. If you know jazz at all, you know the Marsalises: trumpeter Wynton, who heads Jazz at Lincoln Center; saxophonist Branford, a tremendous bandleader and go-to session player; trombonist Delfeayo, an in-demand producer; and drummer and percussionist Jason. (Ellis had two further sons, Ellis III and Mboya, who both chose different career paths.) But before any of them, there was Ellis, playing piano with the likes of Cannonball Adderly and Al Hirt.

I should probably not admit this, but my first exposure to Ellis’s playing came through one of his students, Harry Connick Jr. Ellis played piano on Connick’s version of “Stardust,” and I was intrigued enough to start tracking his work down. I’d already become familiar with Branford’s work through Sting’s first couple solo records, and I’d taken a dive into Wynton’s more expansive pieces, like Citi Movementand In This House, On This Morning. The first Ellis record I bought was Joe Cool’s Blues, his collaboration with Wynton on music composed for Peanuts. It’s terrific.

I had no idea at that time how influential Ellis Marsalis really was, of course. Much of his career was spent as a teacher in New Orleans, showing the fundamentals of jazz to countless performers. His own records are pretty good, and his collaborations with his sons are pretty wonderful, but it was his role as a behind-the-scenes elder statesman of jazz where he truly had an impact. Ellis Marsalis was 85 years old when he succumbed to pneumonia brought on by COVID-19.

And then there is Adam Schlesinger, a songwriter and musician who has made an incalculable impact on my own life and taste. Schlesinger was one of the founding members of Fountains of Wayne, whose wry, relatable songs of human longing never failed to move me. They’re best known for a novelty song, the on-the-nose “Stacy’s Mom,” and as much as I smile when that tune plays, it doesn’t begin to sum up the depth and heart of Schlesinger’s work. Just on that album alone there’s “Hackensack” and “All Kinds of Time,” two wonderful pieces about smaller moments that come closer.

Schlesinger wasn’t just this band, though. He brought his warm, witty and keenly observed songs to several film projects, including That Thing You Do, which includes what I expect is his most famous composition. When asked to write a hit for the movie’s fictional band The Wonders, Schlesinger turned in a perfect two minutes, a song so winning that you don’t mind hearing it again and again, a song so indelible that you believe it could have catapulted this band to stardom.

Schlesinger also wrote several of the songs for the underrated romcom Music and Lyrics, including “Don’t Write Me Off,” from the point of view of a musician (Hugh Grant) who needs his partner in song (Drew Barrymore) to write lyrics for his melodies. The words to “Don’t Write Me Off” are charmingly inept, but lovingly heartfelt – the song makes the case that he needs her not just by saying so, but by showing what his songs would be like without her. It’s a tough tightrope, but Schlesinger pulled it off like it was nothing.

Man, I could go on and on listing this man’s brilliant songs. I haven’t even mentioned Tinted Windows, his supergroup with Taylor Hanson, James Iha and Bun E. Carlos. (Yes, this is real.) Or his “main” band, the atmospheric Ivy. Or the 150-plus songs he wrote or co-wrote for the recently completed Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. (Oh heck, just listen to all of these.) I’ll just say that I never met an Adam Schlesinger song that didn’t make me think or make me feel. I will miss him and his warmth, wit and wisdom terribly.

Schlesinger had been on a ventilator trying to fight off COVID-19 symptoms for a week prior to his death. He was only 52 years old.

As if that were not bad enough, we also lost Bill Withers this week. His death was not related to COVID-19, but is impossibly sad anyway.

Withers, an extraordinary folk-soul songwriter, was perhaps best known for “Lean On Me,” an immortal anthem of support and friendship. It’s a song that resonates pretty strongly in these times, when we are all leaning on each other. He scored several other hits during his 15-year recording career, including the great “Lovely Day” and the even greater “Ain’t No Sunshine.”

I first heard “Ain’t No Sunshine” on Paul McCartney’s Unplugged album from 1991 (since this seems to be a column full of embarrassing admissions). It was one of the best songs in a setlist full of Beatles classics, and it led me to Withers, whose tragically small catalog – eight studio albums and a live record – is full of gems like that one. His sound remained essentially the same throughout, and that’s what eventually led him to give up his recording career completely – he clashed with record company executives, who told him to slicken up his sound and image to sell more records. In the end, he decided he’d rather quit the industry than change who he was.

I admire that immensely, especially since Withers never went back on it. His last album was released in 1985, and save for sporadic appearances at benefits and tribute concerts, that was it. He died on March 30 from heart complications. He was 85 years old. As he once said, “I don’t think I’ve done bad for a guy from Slab Forth, West Virginia.” Indeed. Rest in peace, Bill.

And rest in peace, Ellis and Adam. What a week. As we batten down the hatches for another few months of this, I’m sure we’ll have more tragic stories like those above. We all need each other more than ever now. I will leave you with the words of Bill Withers, and I hope we live up to them:

“Lean on me, when you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend
I’ll help you carry on
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need
Somebody to lean on…”

Love one another. Stay safe.

See you in line Tuesday morning;