[933] Mother's Little Helper
Guest poem submitted by Amit Chakrabarti, <amitc@>, the
final one in his guest theme:
What a drag it is getting old!
"Kids are different today,"
I hear ev'ry mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down.
And though she's not really ill
There's a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day.
"Things are different today,"
I hear ev'ry mother say
Cooking fresh food for a husband's just a drag.
So she buys an instant cake
And she burns her frozen steak
And goes running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And two help her on her way, get her through her busy day.
"Doctor please, some more of these!"
Outside the door, she took four more.
"Men just aren't the same today,"
I hear ev'ry mother say
They just don't appreciate that you get tired.
They're so hard to satisfy,
You can tranquilize your mind
So go running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And four help you through the night, help to minimize your plight.
"Life's just much too hard today,"
I hear ev'ry mother say
The pursuit of happiness just seems a bore.
And if you take more of those
You will get an overdose
No more running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
They just helped you on your way, through your busy dying day.
-- Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
|
[Comments]
Whoa! Did you expect to see Jagger/Richards lyrics in this forum someday?
Well, why not? Tightness of form, good scansion, internal rhymes, plus
biting commentary on then-modern (i.e., 1960's) middle- class society...
it's all here. And the topic is original to boot. What other songs, or for
that matter, poems, do you know of about the sixties anti-depressant drug
craze? The craze has still not ended, afaik. There are any number of poems
and songs about drug addiction in general but this highlights not just one
(overlooked) kind of addiction but its association with basic middle class
boredom. If I were feeling lofty, I might have said "existential angst" but
I'm not, so I won't.
Anyway, this one almost needed to be written.
-Amit.
[Bio]
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were the main songwriting force of the
British rock group "The Rolling Stones". Also, five times two equals ten.
[Links]
http://www.therolling-stones.com/
[Notes]
The song is from the 1966 album "Aftermath". Unfortunately for the American
consumer, the album released under this name in the U.S. lacks this song.
[Sidenotes]
Here are two websites about those anti-depressant drugs (Prozac and its
relatives), if you want to learn more about the topic.
http://www.cchr.org/rape/mlh.htm
http://www.breggin.com/minortranqs.html
[Administrivia]
Hey everybody, Sitaram's redesigned the Minstrels website! Check it out:
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/
From: RChamp7927@
It's a bit rich for rock-and-roll stars to write and sing about other people
using drugs. After all, so many of them took their own "little helpers" in
the form of booze and heroin--including, famously, Keith Richards.
Whatever merits this song has, irony isn't one of them. No doubt the aim is
to attack the lectures on drugs by middle-class parents who were themselves
hooked on tranquilizers. But the drug culture is so pervasive today that the
song seems a bit dated.
Bob Champ
From: "Nicholas Grundy" <nick.grundy@>
Hi,
I was a little concerned at least by the first of the two links posted in
connection with "Mother's little helper" - I'd suggest that coming as it
does from a site entitled "Psychiatric rape" it might be slightly biased.
I'm not claiming expert status by any stretch of the imagination, but
everything I've read, especially by those who suffer depression, regards
antidepressants as essentially lifesaving. This is from Andrew Solomon's
book "The Noonday Demon":
----------------------
I am often asked in social situations to describe my own experiences with
depression and I usually end by saying that I am on medication. 'Still?'
people ask. 'But you seem fine!' To which I invariably reply that I seem
fine because I am fine, and that I am fine because of medication. 'So how
long do you expect to go on taking this stuff?' people ask.
Then I say I will be on medication indefinitely. 'But it's really bad to be
on medicine that way,' they say. 'Surely now you are strong enough to be
able to phase out some of these drugs!' If you say to them that this is
like phasing the carburettor out of your car or the buttresses out of Notre
Dame, they laugh. 'So maybe you'll stay on a really low dose?' they ask.
You explain that the level of medication you take was chosen because it
normalises the systems that can go haywire and that a low dose would be
like removing half your carburettor. You add that you have experienced
almost no side effects, and that there is no evidence of negative effects
of long-term medication. You say you really don't want to get sick again.
But wellness is still, in this area, associated not with achieving control
of your problem, but with discontinuation of medication: 'Well, I sure hope
you get off some time soon,' they say.
'I may not know the exact effects of long-term medication,' says John
Greden, chair of the department of psychiatry at the University of
Michigan. 'No one has yet taken Prozac for 80 years. But I certainly know
the effects of nonmedication, or of going on and off medication, or of
trying to reduce appropriate doses to inappropriate levels - and those
effects are brain damage. We would never treat diabetes or hypertension in
this on-again, off-again way; why do we do it with depression?
Where has this weird social pressure come from? This illness has an 80 per
cent relapse rate within a year without medication, and an 80 per cent
wellness rate with medication.' The side effects of these drugs are for
most people much healthier than the illness they address.
People who take Prozac should watch in the early stages for adverse
responses. The drug can cause facial tics and stiffening of muscles.
Anti-depressant drugs bring up questions around addiction. The lowered
libido, weird dreams, and other effects mentioned on the labelling can be
miserable. I accept that we cannot definitively know the very long-term
effect of the medications. It is most unfortunate, however, that some
scientists have chosen to capitalise on these adverse reactions, spawning
an industry of Prozac detractors who misrepresent the drug as a grave peril
foisted on an innocent public.
I deplore the cynics who keep suffering patients from the essentially
benign cures that might give them back their lives.
------------------------------
I know this is a poetry forum, but could I suggest some bedtime reading for
anyone interested in the subject? I'd say the Wurtzel is the most emotive,
the Wolpert is more scientific (he's Prof of Biology as applied to Medicine
at UCL), and the Solomon more socially focussed.
Do take the links to amazon out if you'd prefer - I put them in because I
think all three books are bloody wonderful and so want people to buy them,
but I am regrettably not on commission! To balance this slightly, here are
some extracts and reviews.
Extract from "The Noonday Demon" (inc. passage above):
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/healthmindandbody/story/0,6000,486568,00.html
Observer review of "The Noonday Demon":
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/healthmindandbody/0,6121,486515,00.html
Guardian review of "The Noonday Demon":
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/healthmindandbody/0,6121,492861,00.html
Extract from "Malignant Sadness":
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/w/wolpert-sadness.html
Guardian review of "Malignant Sadness":
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/healthmindandbody/0,6121,438841,00.html
Irritatingly, I can find hundreds of sites about Wurtzel, but nowhere an
actual review or sizeable extract of her book, for which I apologise.
"The Noonday Demon: an atlas of depression" - Andrew Solomon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/068485466X/qid=1005043690/sr=8-5/ref=sr_8_3_5/107-3546351-2821352
"Prozac Nation" - Elizabeth Wurtzel:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573225126/qid=1005043509/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_14_1/107-3546351-2821352
"Malignant Sadness: the anatomy of depression" - Lewis Wolpert:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684870584/qid=1005043843/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_10_5/107-3546351-2821352
Thanks,
Nick.
Nick Grundy
IBM Global Services
Internet: nick.grundy@ | Notes: Nicholas Grundy/UK/IBM@IBMGB
External: +44 (0) 20 7202 3413 | Internal: 433413
ntl: 020 7528 2417
From: "Nicholas Grundy" <nick.grundy@>
Hi,
I was a little concerned at least by the first of the two links posted in
connection with "Mother's little helper" - I'd suggest that coming as it
does from a site entitled "Psychiatric rape" it might be slightly biased.
I'm not claiming expert status by any stretch of the imagination, but
everything I've read, especially by those who suffer depression, regards
antidepressants as essentially lifesaving. This is from Andrew Solomon's
book "The Noonday Demon":
----------------------
I am often asked in social situations to describe my own experiences with
depression and I usually end by saying that I am on medication. 'Still?'
people ask. 'But you seem fine!' To which I invariably reply that I seem
fine because I am fine, and that I am fine because of medication. 'So how
long do you expect to go on taking this stuff?' people ask.
Then I say I will be on medication indefinitely. 'But it's really bad to be
on medicine that way,' they say. 'Surely now you are strong enough to be
able to phase out some of these drugs!' If you say to them that this is
like phasing the carburettor out of your car or the buttresses out of Notre
Dame, they laugh. 'So maybe you'll stay on a really low dose?' they ask.
You explain that the level of medication you take was chosen because it
normalises the systems that can go haywire and that a low dose would be
like removing half your carburettor. You add that you have experienced
almost no side effects, and that there is no evidence of negative effects
of long-term medication. You say you really don't want to get sick again.
But wellness is still, in this area, associated not with achieving control
of your problem, but with discontinuation of medication: 'Well, I sure hope
you get off some time soon,' they say.
'I may not know the exact effects of long-term medication,' says John
Greden, chair of the department of psychiatry at the University of
Michigan. 'No one has yet taken Prozac for 80 years. But I certainly know
the effects of nonmedication, or of going on and off medication, or of
trying to reduce appropriate doses to inappropriate levels - and those
effects are brain damage. We would never treat diabetes or hypertension in
this on-again, off-again way; why do we do it with depression?
Where has this weird social pressure come from? This illness has an 80 per
cent relapse rate within a year without medication, and an 80 per cent
wellness rate with medication.' The side effects of these drugs are for
most people much healthier than the illness they address.
People who take Prozac should watch in the early stages for adverse
responses. The drug can cause facial tics and stiffening of muscles.
Anti-depressant drugs bring up questions around addiction. The lowered
libido, weird dreams, and other effects mentioned on the labelling can be
miserable. I accept that we cannot definitively know the very long-term
effect of the medications. It is most unfortunate, however, that some
scientists have chosen to capitalise on these adverse reactions, spawning
an industry of Prozac detractors who misrepresent the drug as a grave peril
foisted on an innocent public.
I deplore the cynics who keep suffering patients from the essentially
benign cures that might give them back their lives.
------------------------------
I know this is a poetry forum, but could I suggest some bedtime reading for
anyone interested in the subject? I'd say the Wurtzel is the most emotive,
the Wolpert is more scientific (he's Prof of Biology as applied to Medicine
at UCL), and the Solomon more socially focussed.
Do take the links to amazon out if you'd prefer - I put them in because I
think all three books are bloody wonderful and so want people to buy them,
but I am regrettably not on commission! To balance this slightly, here are
some extracts and reviews.
Extract from "The Noonday Demon" (inc. passage above):
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/healthmindandbody/story/0,6000,486568,00.html
Observer review of "The Noonday Demon":
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/healthmindandbody/0,6121,486515,00.html
Guardian review of "The Noonday Demon":
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/healthmindandbody/0,6121,492861,00.html
Extract from "Malignant Sadness":
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/w/wolpert-sadness.html
Guardian review of "Malignant Sadness":
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/healthmindandbody/0,6121,438841,00.html
Irritatingly, I can find hundreds of sites about Wurtzel, but nowhere an
actual review or sizeable extract of her book, for which I apologise.
"The Noonday Demon: an atlas of depression" - Andrew Solomon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/068485466X/qid=1005043690/sr=8-5/ref=sr_8_3_5/107-3546351-2821352
"Prozac Nation" - Elizabeth Wurtzel:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573225126/qid=1005043509/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_14_1/107-3546351-2821352
"Malignant Sadness: the anatomy of depression" - Lewis Wolpert:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684870584/qid=1005043843/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_10_5/107-3546351-2821352
Thanks,
Nick.
Nick Grundy
IBM Global Services
Internet: nick.grundy@ | Notes: Nicholas Grundy/UK/IBM@IBMGB
External: +44 (0) 20 7202 3413 | Internal: 433413
ntl: 020 7528 2417
From: "leftwrites" <leftwrites@>
There is so much truth.........but the other side is that is.......some
of us ACTUALLY need something to help the mental illnesses of the day. I
would
rather see limited use of tranquilizers than child abuse.
Personality disorders and stress along with job, kids, and husband
sometimes
turns into a pretty ticking time bomb.............
From: "P. Henry" <pat@>
Actually, what this 'passage' describes is the huge popularity of the
use of *valium* among suburban housewives at the time. The drug was
being prescribed as a 'muscle relaxer' like others called 'soma' and
'flexaril' but, in fact, was later discovered to be a potent
anti-psychotic medicine which never should have been given so freely,
which, in my mind, makes this commentary that much more interesting.
these ladies being sung about were REALLY wasted!
From: Acynta@
Nick is right about medication in general; however, the endemic depression
among housewives in the 1950s and 1960s was less of a cause than it was the
effect of social confinement and forced intellectual stagnation. I'll recommend
"The Feminine Mystique" as a counterpoint, as it is a terrifying vision into a
sort of life that those of us born post-1970 really can't remember. Emotions
are not wholly internal or chemical; they respond to stimuli. It's possible
to be malignantly unhappy not because there is something the matter with your
brain but because there is something the matter with your life. It seems to me
that if you are malignantly unhappy, and there is something the matter with
your life, then that is your brain acting correctly, as it is recognizing the
emptiness or soullessness and providing impetus to change.
I've always hated this Rolling Stones song, actually, as it criticizes the
housewife for her addiction to antidepressives and her meaningless life without
recognizing the cause and effect relationship between the two.
carlynn
From: "Bruce Alan Wilson" <bawilson@>
Carlyn writes:
"I've always hated this Rolling Stones song, actually, as it criticizes
the
housewife for her addiction to antidepressives and her meaningless life
without
recognizing the cause and effect relationship between the two. "
If one has a "meaningless life" there are two ways of dealing with it.
Either
change your life to make it meaningful, or to drug yourself with Valium
or
alcohol or whatever so that you don't care anymore.
I'd say to the bored housewife whose main problem is too much time on
her hands
is to go get a job, go back to school, or to find some worthy volunteer
activity. Better than to anesthetize yourself. There are always
alternatives.
Now, if one is really clinically depressed, a specific biochemical
condition,
yes, by all means get help and get on medication. There should be no
stigma on
it any more than there is a stigma for a diabetic to take insulin. (I'm
diabetic
myself, btw.)
--
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Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.10.2 - Release Date: 4/21/2005
From: "Amber Grimes" <agrimes@>
Bruce Alan Wilson writes:
"Either
change your life to make it meaningful, or to drug yourself with Valium
or
alcohol or whatever so that you don't care anymore.
I'd say to the bored housewife whose main problem is too much time on
her hands
is to go get a job, go back to school, or to find some worthy volunteer
activity. Better than to anesthetize yourself. There are always
alternatives."
I agree with you completely, but I feel that housewives in the 50s were
slightly more limited by the confines of their lifestyle and "polite"
society than a housewife of today would be. Divorce was unacceptable, and
man of the time might have taken their wife's desire to take a job as an
insult to their masculinity, and if the wife didn't have a car, which many
more households only owned one car, then it would be more difficult for her
to volunteer, and then many of the housewife's had to care for their
children, and would not be allowed the luxury of daycare for them.
Regardless, this is one of my favorite Rolling Stones (poems) songs.
Amber Grimes
Marketing Services Coordinator
Paul Mueller Company