2020 has been a bundle of appalling events and Covid-19 has mostly been at the root of the horror. Mostly. We’ve lost our freedom to feel safe doing normal, daily tasks. Americans have lost loved ones and friends we thought we would have forever. Most have sacrificed, trying to re-navigate life now and moving forward. And up until this point most of us have endured and dusted ourselves off. And we try every day to keep moving on through the painful reality of a pandemic.
COVID-19 & 2020
This Illness seems to affect everyone differently. Some of the infected walk around never knowing they’re sick; it debilitates others forevermore; the unlucky are sick for so long they can’t remember what it was like not being sick. And other people get it, get it done, and walk away like nothing happened. Unfortunately, some die. But through all this bullshit many of us have found our medicine to heal our souls through music.
I have always believed music has a magical power that nothing else does. A power to cure us in ways nothing else can. Recently I learned that one of the artists I’ve turned to most of my life for such a cure was not only stricken down by Covid earlier this year, but now may never be able to perform again because of it.
Maynard James Keenan Infected w/ Covid-19
Maynard James Keenan of TOOL had Covid-19. This completely devastated my thought process. How could this be….? But not because there is something immortal about artists, but because I felt especially unnerved that things just may not be the same again.
A few weeks ago front man Maynard James Keenan of TOOL revealed to Joe Rogan on the famous podcast show, The Joe Rogan Experience, that he contracted the Corona Virus. Then Keenan shared his personal experience and the lung damage he has suffered from his experience with Covid. As a result he had doubts he may not be able to perform because of the infection and its lasting side effects.
And so, this revelation by Maynard struck me. And once again, there I was, turning to music to put some type of expression to my thoughts of all this. Once again, I found the my answer within TOOL’s song “Sober” of the Undertow album.
Covid-19 is a “Shadow just behind us, shrouding every step we take and making every promise empty” I am not a religious person but “Jesus won’t you blow the fucking whistle”
Let’s all come together, wear the mask, and social distance. I will look out for you, if you will look out for me. Our alternative? The Virus. “Trust in me and fall as well. I will find the center in you, I will chew it up and leave, I will work to elevate you.”
Stay Safe and Stay Healthy! An get well, Maynard!
-Inny, The Retro
We included the YouTube video below if you’d like to see Maynard James Keenan on the Joe Rogan Experience: