Leslie Fish - The Day It Fell Apart

I own nothing from this video, and probably even flubbed some lyrics. Horrible as I am, I intend no distress or infringement upon royalties, credit, talent or rarefied air.

More uploads coming. Many songs by Leslie Fish, some by Kathy Mar, a handful from Heather Alexander, a smattering sample of Meg Davis and Cynthia McQuillin, and a single song from Kristoph Klover and Joe Bethancourt respectively.

I welcome any suggestions for uploads, although, my library is far from complete. If it sounds familiar, I will scramble through all my backup CDs at the expense of all else. I shall forgo hygiene and nourishment all for your whims!

[SharronManassa]

Just a little general hospital, in a little factory town.
The board put me in charge for mainly keeping prices down.
I hadn't touched a patient since 1982,
But the day of the explosion I remembered what to do.
At eleven in the morning, we all heard the factory blow.
The blast took out the windows, and the shrapnel fell like snow.
We could get no help from out of town for half a day or more.
We had near a thousand casualties and beds for ninety-four.

And can you keep your head, your backbone, or your heart?
We all found out the answer on the day it fell apart.

It was worse than combat medicine; supplies were draining fast.
Bandages ran out and antiseptics wouldn't last.
I took all the able-bodied I could catch inside the door
And made them help the doctors to go scrounge supplies and more.
I invented laws to tell them saying in such emergency
Forget your usual job and boss, your orders come from me.
I sent the cops to commandeer anything in reach:
Food or disinfectant cloth or alcohol or bleach.

The janitor ran cleanup squad, the cook maintained supplies,
The garbageman removed the ones who died before our eyes.
The clerks burned all our papers to boil water on the fire
For sterilizing instruments, as the body count went higher.
A local healthfood herbalist brought everything he had.
The painkillers were useful, and the poultices weren't bad.
A smack and cocaine pusher handed us his whole supply.
The quality was lousy, but a few more didn't die.

We did triage in the parking lot, ranked minor, major, grave.
A sad-eyed fireman gave the stroke to those we couldn't save.
Then sometime in the chaos, a director wandered in
To tell us we were breaking rules, what trouble we'd be in.
But if we'd swear the factory was not the fire's cause,
And the harm was accidental, he'd forget the broken laws.
The staff sneaked up and grabbed him, and tied him to a door.
He gave them blood transfusions 'till he hadn't any more.
(Musical interlude)

When that day was over, and we'd saved all that we could,
We saw that law and politics would hang us where we stood.
We'd saved eight hundred lives but shattered all authority.
I told them, "People, save yourselves, put all the blame on me."
I took my books and instruments, and a few supplies beside,
Packed my car and ran away to open countryside.
So now I live an outlaw, condemned by righteous men,
But for all the lives I saved that day ... I'd do it all again.

And can you keep your head, your backbone, or your heart?
You'll all find out the answers on the day it falls apart

Source: Musixmatch

[Siriussky]

I know there are HQ versions of this but this really makes me feel like I'm in the room with the filkers, I really want to meet Leslie fish one day

[azulira]

The part that always gets me for some reason is the drug dealer giving up his whole supply to save people.

[Arohan]

One of the things I love about this song is that whenever I listen to it I envision the narrator as old Hawkeye Pierce from the old M.A.S.H. show (not the movie). Think about it. In the show Pierce is 31 when the war ends in 1954. That'd make him 59 when the narrator last touched a patient in 1982. The album this came from was released in 1989 so let's go with that as the year the song takes place. That'd put the narrator, if it's Hawkeye, at 66. A little past retirement age and 7 yrs since he last touched a patient. For a surgeon, being out of the game that long is a fairly big deal. He was probably able to keep prices down because of the ability to stretch supplies and find alternatives thanks to having to get creative in a M.A.S.H. unit.

The narrator also probably has combat medic experience. They compare the scene to combat medicine and say "they remembered what to do." That sounds like someone who's used to performing medicine in high stress situations with massive casualties. Exactly what Hawkeye did. And of course, as probably the only person in town with that kind of experience he's gonna have to take charge.

Then you have the flagrant disregard for rules and laws when lives need saving that fits with Hawkeye's character to a T. Lastly, the narrator uses the word scrounge. That was always how Radar and Klinger referred to their supply collection; scrounging supplies.

[ThePodVon]

Damn, but I am so glad that I finally found a recording of this song online.
I was never an emergency worker, but I was an analytical chemist during the analysis and cleanup after a major explosion in a chemical plant and this song was running through my head all through the following days and the massive overtime effort involved.

[SoulGriever]

I'd actually pay money to see this turned into a movie.

[greatjonumber]

"Oh your O-! Wonderful!" I love it

[drtoonie]

I've been thinking about this song a lot lately

[carloak]

The narrator here is a true hero. Of course he/she would disclaim this saying, "I'm no hero. I just did what had to be done." But that's the definition of a true hero; someone who does what has to be done because to do anything else is unthinkable, regardless of the personal cost, because to do nothing would be even more expensive, in the coin of not being able to look at themselves in the mirror; or having to look at themselves with loathing. And such people are *not* fearless. They are usually scared boneless but they do it anyway because they're more scared of what they will think of themselves if they do nothing. You can run away from others. You can't get away from yourself.

[emilyblack]

Let’s hope that the applicability of this song is limited in the coming months... I don’t really want to live through the spring when everything fell apart.

Edit: “coming months” was a really cute estimate

[franciscampagna]

I used to work in an emergency department. Never had anything on this scale, but yeah, sometimes you break the rules, then snicker when the Monday morning quarterbacks come around.

[AnonIsland]

well, its falling apart. greetings from 2020.

[christal]

So wonderful to know Leslie is still with us and getting a wider audience!

[johnmatteson]

Leslie Fish was a fixture at so many cons. Carmen Miranda's Ghost (is haunting space station three), The Tale of Jamie Dawson, and so many other classics out of filk manuals.

[todbrown]

Leslie Fish is one of the great modern bard/balladeers, Incredible images in accessible verse. I have loved her work since someone gave me a "mix tape" about the time we opened the Metaphysical shop in Northwestern lower Michigan.
played as a soundtrack alongside Isaac Bonewits and friends " Be Pagan once again", Carlos Nakai, and Loreena McKennitt,
I have learned to sing these songs, Hers, in particular; and shamelessly adapted the tunes to my personal practice...'nuff said.
Now, I am seeking to get the CDs....

[TheKhopesh]

Listening to this song, the massive firework factory explosion in Beirut comes to mind...
(Apparently, it blew out windows injuring people up to 37 miles away.)

[ezekielnightshade]

Awesome song... And when in crisis, screw authority, do what's right.

[snakerattleroll]

I like how on the first verse, he tells people they can sing the chorus line with him and they're doing it by the last one.

[Martyhero]

I like to imagine that in the aftermath, when the bureaucrats descended and on the town and demanded who was responsible for mangling the chain of command, the townsfolk pulled a Spartacus and everyone took singular responsibly for it. Several hundred conflicting confessions later the case would be dropped. As for the unwilling blood donor director, he would decline to make a statement on account that he realized what had happened was the Right Thing To Do... and because the entire town reminded him that snitches get stitches.

[rustattack]

This song is why i became a doctor. If bureaucracy stands in-between saving somones life id proudly go to jail or live as an outlaw