11/5/07: Dr. Feelgood: "You Shouldn't Call the Doctor
                                     (If You Can't Afford the Bills)" (1975)

RightWingTrash would certainly like to see the GOP take a keener interest in affordable health insurance. We’re not even sure how much we buy into the notion that people would only abuse inexpensive access to doctors. We’ve never been such hypochondriacs that we could get up the nerve to expose ourselves to the diseased interior of a public health clinic.

But why should we? Our nation’s health system currently allows losers like ourselves to have the same physician as a few of the rich and famous types that we often write about. Heck, we were sharing a waiting room with Pauline Kael back when Hillary Clinton was first warming up on getting us to settle for whatever witch doctor matched our gutter-level income.

Anyway, here’s a song that celebrates the notion that illegal aliens shouldn’t be using our emergency rooms as their own personal chain of Doc-in-the-Boxes. The guys in Dr. Feelgood briefly made pub-rock cool when they came along in 1974, most famously for a debut album recorded in mono. “You Shouldn't Call the Doctor (If You Can't Afford the Bills)” is from 1975’s Malpractice, and songwriter Wilko Johnson is laying down the law of survival. Here’s the opening verse:

         Girls, if your heart is feeling sore
         Call the doctor and he’ll fix it for sure
         I’ll be over right away
         But you might find you have to pay
         For a private consultation and a guaranteed cure

There might also be some sexual connotations here. Draw your own conclusions from watching this video. It’s still a fun anthem for any conservative who needs something catchy to open their next podcast—and sometimes, that’s all we’re looking to provide here.

Make it your own: As mentioned, this one’s from 1975’s Malpractice (as pictured above). That’s also one of the few truly great albums in the pub-rock genre. Sadly, the band fell apart soon afterward, with Wilko leaving and Dr. Feelgood soldiering on in unexpectedly strong fashion. Even sadder, vocalist Lee Brilleaux passed away in 1994. You’re better off with a Wilko show than you are with any current Feelgood incarnation.

 

What did you think of this article?

Liked
Disliked
No Opinion