For Highland Park, Illinois, or
Anytown, USA
LILLY DICKMAN
Statement Associate Editor
The morning after the Supreme
Court overturned Roe v. Wade, I
awoke to the sound of rain. Instead of
getting up to begin my day, I stayed in
bed — a move foreign to my routine.
I was sad and dejected, I lacked the
motivation to leave the cocoon of
my covers. So I lay and listened to
the rain. I knew the universe was
sad, too; its tears were rolling off my
window.
That night, I attended a Grateful
Dead concert for the first time. I
went with my friend and her dad, a
Deadhead who was going to Wrigley
Field, rain or shine, to hear them play.
Music is one of my favorite things. I
don’t listen to the Grateful Dead, but
I appreciate all talented musicians. I
was excited. I threw on some overalls
and, of course, a raincoat, as it was
projected to pour.
On the ride to Wrigleyville, my
friend’s dad passionately prepared
me for the experience that awaited.
He reviewed set lists from their
recent shows. He narrated the
Drums and Space section that would
take place three-quarters through
the concert so I’d know to take my
seat for this part, and this part only.
He described the myriad of people
who’d line the streets outside of the
stadium, tripping on molly and any
other hallucinogen ever discovered
or created.
While his prepping helped me step
into the right headspace and look like
an old pro three-quarters through
as I took my seat with the rest of the
stadium, nothing could have prepared
me for the moment the music started
playing. I was transported to an
alternate universe, a dimension I
did not know. Conversations halted,
reunions
of
Deadheads
ceased,
picture-taking ended. As if a spell
had been cast over the stadium,
everyone stood, singing and swaying
in the rawest and purest expression
of joy and contentment I had ever
witnessed. Reality was on pause, and
we were existing in a vacuum where
only the sound produced by a few old
guys and John Mayer could penetrate
our brains.
I,
too,
swayed
with
myself,
confused at how quickly I had
succumbed to this bizarre and cultish
experience, but also at how natural
and soothing it felt. I reeled in the
genius of Mayer’s fingers plucking
his guitar, Jeff Chimenti’s fingers
pounding his keys and Bob Weir’s
voice echoing through the stadium.
Pure art. I watched the swaying sea
of 50- and 60-year-olds in tie-dye. No
fashion statements here — just pride
in cotton rainbows cloaked over adult
bodies. No phones in the air, either,
videoing or taking pictures. As I
listened, I pretended I was in the ’80s.
I wondered if everyone around me
was pretending this, too. That’s where
we had been catapulted: the height of
the Grateful Dead’s popularity, many
of these people’s youths.
I pretended there were no social
media feeds to check or contribute to,
no crushing news alerts to be attuned
to. I pretended that Donald Trump
had not been president. I pretended
we were free to be you and me; that
fringe was in and violence was out. I
pretended there was no pandemic. No
resulting market tanks. I pretended
mass shootings weren’t something
to fear in a crowd like this one. I
pretended that we all had the right
to an abortion. Swaying in the music,
surrounded by the old ivied walls of
Wrigley Field, smiles, lyrics, tie-dye
and weed, the pretending worked.
My raincoat went unused that
night. Maybe the universe was
pretending, too. It was joyous for
the night, like I was, its sadness
temporarily
dissipating,
creating
a dome of safety and freedom and
happy reminisce. I wondered if the
band members who had passed away,
such as original lead vocalist Jerry
Garcia staring down at this little
haven they had left behind, were
grateful they were dead. That they
had gotten to exist in the era that they
did, not the one now. I wondered if
the 50- and 60-year-olds swaying in
their tie-dye were grateful that their
youth had died in the ’70s and ’80s.
That their glory days took place in
an era before mine. If I was them, I
would be.
Nine days later, my heart palpitated
and my legs went weak as I opened
the “Find My Friends” app to check
my parents’ location to see if they
were at the Highland Park Fourth of
July Parade. They walk my dog there
every year. To my relief, their location
read as home. When I texted my
mom in a frenzy, asking what she was
doing, she told me she was riding her
Peloton. I told her to get off — there
was an active shooter on Central.
I was at Dartmouth, visiting
my twin sister. We sat on her bed,
watching from her computer as the
abandoned main street of our little
hometown appeared on NBC, ABC,
CNN, Fox. As the anchors I watch
every day narrated the live events of
the shooting and manhunt unfolding
on the roads that I could drive on with
my eyes closed.
S T A T E M E N T
Wednesday, July 20, 2022 — 3
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Billy Joel to Bo Burnham:
The evolution of our
apocalypse anthem
In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing.
About the dark times.
– Bertolt Brecht, The Svendborg
Poems
My father and I watched a NOVA
documentary when I was a child.
It was a sobering experience, as it
covered all of the possible ways that
our civilization, the planet and the
universe could end. After viewing it,
I sat in silence with my dad before
speaking up.
“So, climate change and any other
thing could end us. We can solve
those and do like, things to prevent
the random things like coronal mass
ejections? The sun will eat the Earth
in like, billions of years, so we’ll have
to get off-planet first. Then the Big
Rip or whatever, I guess we could
try to escape to a different universe?
Right, dad?” My dad just smiled at
me.
Let’s face it — it feels like the world
will end tomorrow. The Doomsday
Clock — a design used by the Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists to visualize
how close humanity is to its end —
changed from two minutes to 100
seconds to midnight in 2020. I don’t
think I need to repeat to you every
possible reason that has been brought
forward by every other article
detailing how it feels like we’re in the
SAARTHAK JOHRI
Statement Correspondent
end times. Instead, let’s look at what
solace is in one of humanity’s oldest
pastimes — music.
Probably the most famous song
that tackles the feeling of impending
doom is Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start
the Fire”, a frantically-paced hit
that
chronicles
world-shattering
events from the late 1940s — when
the Doomsday Clock was started
— to around the song’s release in
1989. It insists that “we didn’t start
the fire” of the flames consuming
the world. Since its release, it’s been
parodied and retrofitted to a variety
of subcultures and every subsequent
brush society has had with collapse.
There’s another song that tackles
the end times in a similar way and
had its own time-specific lyrics
replicated and personalized to other
artists’ covers, ad infinitum.
“That
Funny
Feeling”
by
comedian/musician Bo Burnham
is part of a special (one that he
created in a single room entirely
by
himself)
documenting
the
degradation of the world and a
person’s mental state over the first
year of the COVID-19 pandemic
— a degradation that led to the
Doomsday Clock’s shift. What’s
extremely
interesting
is
that
“That Funny Feeling” is the polar
opposite of Billy Joel’s hit in nearly
every way. Aside from repetitive
references towards current events,
Burnham’s song is a much slower
and simpler ballad.
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