The quality of the doctor-patient relationship impacts healthcare outcomes. A growing number of physicians are recommending that the healthcare system step beyond the patient-centered approach, which has been the focus of efforts to improve medical care in recent years, to a relationship-centered approach to healthcare, which calls on the healthcare system to recognize that emotions are an important part of illness and health and that patients can influence physicians as much as physicians influence them.¹

Rock and roll music provides a unique opportunity to study doctor-patient relationships. A special relationship emerges when doctors become the focus of rock songs. Rock and roll music often attributes important psychological significance to physicians. Musicians project their personal problems through love songs and songs that deal with sex, drugs, and death. In rock songs, physicians frequently represent a cure for lovesickness, considered by Freud the “psychosis of normal people.”²

Lovesickness first became a notable part of the medical profession in the writings of Galen. Since then, philosophers, theologians, and social scientists have proposed many theories and cures. The musician’s cure for lovesickness—to write and sing songs—contrasts with the physician’s cure, which is to provide counseling and possibly antidepressants. While antidepressants are known to alleviate depression, there is also evidence that they interfere with mechanisms that sustain feelings of romantic love and deep feelings of attachment.³

Individuals in the helping professions often equate lovesickness with addictive and obsessive-compulsive behaviors, the kind of psychopathology that makes its way into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.⁴ Certainly, lovers need help when love ends badly; and to poll popular culture through rock music, it ends that way most of the time. If love somehow leads to better physical and mental health, as many magazine articles and self-help books claim, one could have a problem explaining the existence of rock and roll music.

A DIFFERENT ART FORM

Physicians are portrayed quite differently in rock music than they are in literature, art, cinema, and theater. In the opera, for example, physicians are lampooned as quacks, criticized for the reckless pursuit of scientific knowledge, accused of supernatural evil powers, and sometimes admired for compassion.⁵ Physicians are portrayed in opera not simply to advance the plot, but to represent popular views of the medical profession during the periods in which they lived, mainly the early nineteenth century in Europe.

Movies, by contrast, are a more contemporary medium of expression. Nearly half of physicians are portrayed negatively in cinema, often as greedy, egotistical, uncaring, and unethical, especially in more recent movies.⁶ Movie physicians often base treatment decisions on a patient’s ability to pay, and inefficient bureaucracies and healthcare systems hamper them.

Similar themes appear in literature, where medical encounters often leave patients dissatisfied.⁷ Literature offers many reasons why patients are disgruntled with physicians: treatment failures, poor communication, and a lack of concern. In fictional works, when doctors are sued, they often lose the case despite their innocence. However, writers of fiction and rock songs share at least one thing: many have been psychotherapy patients at some point in their lives, and their descriptions of doctor-patient relationships may mirror their therapy experiences.

PSYCHOANALYTIC EXPLORATION

Upon careful listening, many rock albums can be well appreciated as artistic expressions worthy of psychoanalytic exploration.⁸ Singer-songwriter Jackson Browne claimed that writing songs is “a healing thing, a way of confronting what’s important in my life at the time.”⁹ Whereas psychotherapy provides the ideal framework for deciphering musicians’ experiences, rock music provides the creative outlet. For example, Browne has written songs about his highly publicized breakup with longtime girlfriend actress Daryl Hannah, as well as the death of his first wife, Phyllis, by suicide. Indeed, death songs comprise a disproportionately popular subset of Top 40 music,¹⁰ and many rock musicians die prematurely from self-inflicted causes, reaffirming the connection between their music and the medical profession.

ROCK AND ROLL DOCTOR

The song that perhaps best epitomizes this connection is “Rock and Roll Doctor,” written by Lowell George, a founding member of Little Feat and a former member of Frank Zappa’s band. George’s offbeat sense of humor and surreal lyrics became a Little Feat trademark in the 1970s.

The rock and roll doctor is described as a “doctor of the heart and a doctor of the mind.” He has “two degrees in be-bop and a Ph.D. in swing, he’s a master of rhythm, a rock and roll king.” People from all walks of life come from “miles around” to see him, including a woman from Georgia who has “fever all day and chills at night.” The good doctor dispenses good vibes: “If you wanna feel real nice, just ask the rock and roll doctor’s advice.” He offers “country [music] with a boogie beat [and] the sound of shufflin’ feet.” Compared with other doctors, “he can’t be beat.”

“Rock and Roll Doctor” was a cornerstone of George’s existence. It defined him as a rock musician, and it is the title of his biography.¹¹ George’s brief solo career after Little Feat was cut tragically short by a heroin-induced heart attack in 1979. He was only 34 years old.

GOOD LOVIN’

A doctor similar to the rock and roll doctor is described in “Good Lovin.’” This classic 1960s song by the Young Rascals is about a patient who “was feelin’ so bad.” He “asked [his] family doctor just what [he] had.” The doctor, referred to as “Mr. M.D.,” replies that “good lovin’” is all he really needs. The patient pleads with his “baby” to squeeze him tight. He tells her: “I got the fever, yeah, and you got the cure.”

“A Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)” surfaced on Robert Palmer’s Secrets album in the fall 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. Bad case of lovin’ you.”

Love’s burning desire is also evident in “Doctor! Doctor!” by the Thompson Twins (who were neither a duo nor related): “Oh, Doctor, doctor, can’t you see I’m burning, burning. Oh, doctor, doctor, is this love I’m feeling?” Tom Bailey and Alannah Currie were the driving force behind the Thompson Twins and eventually married.

I DON’T NEED NO DOCTOR

Of course, therapy for the love bug does not always require a doctor. “I Don’t Need No Doctor” was made famous in the early 1970s by the British rock group Humble Pie. The lyrics are straightforward: “I don’t need no doctor . . ’cause I know what’s ailing me. All I need is my baby . . . her sweet charm.” After the relationship is consummated, the singer boasts: “I don’t need no doctor, my prescriptions have been filled.”

The song supports observations by English churchman and scholar Robert Burton (1576–1639). In his Anatomy of Melancholy, Burton wrote that “of all passions . . . Love is most violent.”¹² He suggested therapeutic intercourse as a cure for lovesickness: “The last refuge and surest remedy, to be put in practice in the utmost place, when no other means will take effect, is to let them go together, and enjoy one another.”

In “Not the Doctor,” Alanis Morissette shuns the role of doctor to extricate herself from a relationship. She refuses to be a “bandage” for a man’s emotional wounds. She doesn’t want the responsibility of healing his “fractured heart and its wounded beat.” She exclaims: “You see it’s too much to ask, and I am not the doctor.”

A DOCTOR BY ANY OTHER NAME?

Many rock songs are named after a doctor. “Doctor Wu,” for example, written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen (aka Steely Dan), explores the world of drugs. Doctor Wu personifies a drug dependency.¹³ The refrain asks, “Are you with me, Doctor Wu? Are you really just a shadow of the man that I once knew? Are you crazy, are you high? Or just an ordinary guy? Have you done all you can do? Are you with me Doctor . . .”?

In the song “Doctor Robert,” the doctor’s most conspicuous claim to fame is his drug dealing: “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.” Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney about a physician who allegedly dispensed hallucinogenic drugs to his friends,¹⁴ the song praises Doctor Robert at a time when The Beatles’ own experimentation with psychedelic drugs was taking root.

There’s also Doctor Jimmy. “Doctor Jimmy” appears on The Who’s Quadrophenia album, released in 1973. Quadrophenia is a coming-of-age story of a 1960s British teenager named Jimmy. Jimmy has four sides to his personality. Each side is depicted by one of the four members of the Who, hence the title “Quadrophenia.” Doctor Jimmy represents the quiet and introspective bassist John Entwistle: “Doctor Jimmy and Mister Jim. When I’m pilled, you don’t notice him. He only comes out when I drink my gin.”

Both Entwistle and Who drummer Keith Moon died drug-related deaths. Arguably, their best playing was on “The Real Me,” the opening salvo to Quadrophenia. The song is also noteworthy because it features a doctor who is unable to recognize the protagonist’s true identity: “I went to the doctor to get another shrink. I have to tell him about my weekend, but he never betrays what he thinks. Can you see the real me, doctor”?

ANATOMY LESSON

Not surprisingly, rock songs that reference physicians also reference body parts. In Browne’s “Doctor My Eyes,” a patient seeks help “to see the evil and the good without hiding.” He wonders whether it was unwise to leave his eyes open for so long: “Doctor my eyes cannot see the sky. Is this the prize for having learned not to cry?” A metaphor for protest and activism, “Doctor My Eyes” was written about the Vietnam War. It is one of several anti-war songs Browne has written over the past few decades.

Finally, in Randy Newman’s “Back On My Feet Again,” a mentally ill patient doubts whether he will ever recover. The doctor holds the key to the man’s recovery, literally and figuratively. The man pleads: “Open the door and set me free. Get me back on my feet again.”

CONCLUSION

Many physicians grew up with rock and roll as the predominant music of the baby boomer generation, so it is not unreasonable that they are attracted to rock music and even perform procedures with rock and roll in the background.¹⁵ Perhaps it is more remarkable that physicians have been personified in some well-known rock songs, primarily as a symbolic cure for lovesickness. Rock songs shed additional light on doctor-patient relationships and the connection between musicians and the medical profession.

References

1. Beach MC, Inui TS, and the Relationship-Center-Care Research Network. Relationship-centered care: a constructive reframing. J Gen Intern Med. 2006;21:S3-S8.

2. Freud S. Mourning and melancholia. In: Strachey J, ed. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 24 vols (1914–16). London, England: Hogarth Press; 1981:14:245.

3. Fisher H. Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love. New York, NY: Henry Holt; 2004.

4. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR (Text Revision). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing; 2000.

5. Florin TA. Demon, quack, scientist, or saint: depictions of doctoring in the operatic literature. The Pharos. 2005;68(1):18–24.

6. Flores G. Mad scientists, compassionate healers, and greedy egotists: the portrayal of physicians in the movies. J Nat Med Assoc. 2002;94:635–658.

7. Posen S. The Doctor in Literature: Satisfaction or Resentment? Seattle, WA: Radcliffe Publishing; 2005.

8. Brog MA. ‘Pop’ psychology: putting rock and roll music on the psychoanalytic couch. Psychiatric Times. 2005;22(7):18–19.

9. Browne J. Quoted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum Internet Web page. Available at www.rockhall.com/hof/inductee.asp?id=2176. Accessed February 28, 2006.

10. Plopper BL, Ness ME. Death as portrayed to adolescents through top 40 rock and roll music. Adolescence. 1993;112:793–807.

11. Brend M. Rock and Roll Doctor. San Francisco, CA: Backbeat Books; 2002.

12. Burton R. The Anatomy of Melancholy. New York, NY: The New York Review of Books; 2001.

13. Sweet B. Steely Dan: Reelin’ in the Years. London, England: Omnibus Press; 1994.

14. Harry B. The John Lennon Encyclopedia. London, England: Virgin Publishers; 2000.

15. Bartley GB: The perils of the rock-n-roll surgeon. Ophthal Plast Reconstr Surg. 2001;17:307–308.