Doctor, doctor: I got the fever; you got the cure

Doctors may be lampooned in opera, vilified in films, and condemned in literature, but in rock and roll they are the sweet talking guys.

They dispense good vibes, not to mention a number of illicit drugs, and they also have an extraordinary high rate of consultations for love sickness.

What may well be the first study of the doctor-patient relationship in rock and roll music finds that song writers attribute special psychological significance to doctors (Medical Practice Management 2006;22:162-5).

That may, says the author, be because many rock musicians have been in psychotherapy at some point in their lives, and their descriptions of doctor-patient relationships may well mirror those experiences.

“Rock songs shed additional light on doctor-patient relationships and the connection between musicians and the medical profession,” writes Arthur Lazarus, senior director of clinical research at AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, Wilmington, Delaware, whose study analyses the lyrics of rock and roll songs in which doctors are the central characters.

He says that rock and roll music provides a unique opportunity to study doctor-patient relationships: “A special relationship between doctors and their patients emerges when doctors become the focus of rock songs. Physicians are portrayed quite differently in rock music than they are in literature, art, cinema, and theatre.”

The study shows that in rock songs doctors are most often consulted over cures for love sickness. “Good Lovin',” the classic 1960s song by the Young Rascals, for example, is about a patient who was feeling so bad that he asked his family doctor just what he had. The doctor, referred to as Mr MD, replies that “good lovin'” should help, prompting the line “I got the fever, yeah, and you got the cure.”

Love's burning desire is also evident in “Doctor! Doctor!” by the Thompson Twins: “Oh, doctor, doctor, can't you see I'm burning, burning? Oh, doctor, doctor, is this love I'm feeling?” In “A Bad Case of Loving You” on Robert Palmer's Secrets album of 1979, a lovesick man proclaims, “Doctor, Doctor, give me the news. I got a bad case of lovin' you. No pill's gonna cure my ill.”

Many rock and roll doctors, such as Steely Dan's Doctor Wu, are also involved in dispensing illicit drugs. The song “Doctor Robert” by John Lennon and Paul McCartney is also about a doctor who seems to dispense hallucinogenic drugs to his friends: “If you're down he'll pick you up. Take a drink from his special cup. He's a man you must believe. Helping everyone in need. No one can succeed like Doctor Robert.”

Dr Lazarus says that many doctors were exposed to rock and roll music as the predominant music of the baby boomer generation, so it is perhaps not unreasonable that they are attracted to rock music and have even been known to conduct procedures with rock and roll playing in the background.

“Perhaps it is more remarkable that physicians have been personified in some well-known rock songs, primarily as a symbolic cure for lovesickness,” he says.

“Upon careful listening, many rock albums can be well appreciated as artistic expressions worthy of psychoanalytic exploration.”