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
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

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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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