Monday, August 21, 2006

Soundtrack

Quite some time ago "they" (those people who do stuff when I'm on days off) took away our music, by this I mean they disabled and disconnected the CD players in all the ambulances. For a while there we were able to go screaming through the streets with Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries (from the Apocalypse Now soundtrack) blasting from the stereo as we made our approach. Occasionally in our haste to get out of the truck at a job, we'd leave the volume turned up. When we had just got grandpa settled on the bed in the back, and we've helped nanna finally get her seatbelt on in the front, we'd start up the truck and scare the absolute crap out of everybody. I can't imagine why did they took them away.

Now we just have the radio which is wired through the data terminal (MDT) in the truck and has atrocious reception - if you like your Britney Spears with a lot of hiss and crackle (which I actually do) then its fine, but if you really want to hear the cricket score or the traffic report - Tough. A few of us now bring in iPods and transmit through the radio - it still sounds crappy but it does give us a way to listen to something other than moronic talkback at 4 am.

Today I've been making up a playlist to play in the ambulance. I figure I need a good mix of tunes from a variety of artists. I hope I have something for everybody :)

Kanje West - Breathe in Breathe out
Audiovent - I cant breathe
The Police - Every breath you take
Yes - Saving my Heart
NOFX - You're Bleeding
The Replacements - Take me down to the hospital
Bob Dylan - It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
Boy George - Do You Really Want To Hurt Me
Urge Overkill - Positive Bleeding
Metallica - Kill em all
The Flaming Lips - Mr. Ambulance Driver
Bon Jovi's - Bad medicine
Tori Amos - Taxi Ride
Lynyrd Skynyrd - That Smell
Pearl Jam - Let Me Sleep
The Prodigy - Crazy man
Queens Of The Stone Age - Everybody Knows That You Are Insane
Madness - House of Fun
Mark Knopfler - Don't Crash The Ambulance
Madness - Cardiac Arrest
Golden Boy - Rippin' Kitten ( I feel like takin' a life)
Nat King Cole - Pick Yourself Up
Led Zeppelin - Sick Again
Pink - You Make Me Sick
Blur - Ambulance
Eskimo Joe - I'm So Tired
Alkaline Trio - My Little Needle
Guttermouth - This Won't Hurt A Bit
and lastly..
Frank Zappa - Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?

Well, That oughtta just about do it. Anybody have any others I can add?

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Something to serve as soundtrack for all of those useless jobs you go to.. Tori Amos' "Caught a Lite Sneeze" and The Kinks' "Catch me Now I'm Falling."

Excellent playlist, love. I've been giggling all morning.

Anonymous said...

Oh yes, and I forgot Romeo Void's "A Girl in Trouble (is a Temporary Thing)".

Anonymous said...

REM - 'Everybody hurts'
Beatle 'Getting Better' (bit of optimism for ill folk)
Four Seasons 'Big Girls Don't Cry'
Bobby Vee 'Take Good Care of my Baby'
Amen Corner 'Bend me, Shape me' (for broken limbs....)

Anonymous said...

They took your CD players away? Bastards! That's equivalent to killing Kenny (from 'South Park') as far as I'm concerned.

It's a topic that's come up a few times in other EMS sites that I read. Some of the suggestions have included...

AC/DC - Highway to Hell
Queen - Another One Bites the Dust
REM - It's the End of the World as We Know It
Faith No More - We Care a Lot
Shock Treament soundtrack - Shock Treatment

And of course...

MASH soundtrack - Suicide is Painless

rob said...

Usuakari said:
It's a topic that's come up a few times in other EMS sites that I read.
Dang and there I thought I was being terribly witty - it just shows what sleep deprivation can do to the mind!

I love all the suggestions that have been made - thank you all - please keep them coming, I've had a good chuckle at many of them... in between wishing I'd thought of them first ;)

Carmelo said...

Maroon 5- Harder to breath

Lionel Richie- All night long

Sum 41- Fat Lip

Cool blog.

Anonymous said...

Oh yes - Kinky Machine (a defunct UK indie glam rock band) are a rich vein of catchy and appropriate songs including "Crashing the Ambulance" and "Nosebleed". The former includes the lyrics:

"Heading for a break down
Or may be a pile up
They always wanna cut me up
I know just where I'm heading for
I've been there many times before
In the silence of the night
Come the sirens of the flashing blue lights

Crashing the ambulance
Crashing the ambulance
Crashing the ambulance
Crashing the ambulance"

Anonymous said...

there was a show about emergency service workers here in the states called Third Watch. The opening theme song is awesome, and it goes great when your going Code 3 (lights and sirens) to a call. Other songs for going P1, Code 3 or whatever you call it:

Drowning Pool- Let The Bodies Hit The Floor

Chamillionaire- Ridin' Dirty

Institute- Ambulances

Warlocks- It's Just Like Surgery

Bush- Machinehead

I have to look at my own playlist for more because there's alot more I can name. However, that Valkryies song is amazing. I'm going to use that at one point.

Anonymous said...

Rob said:
Dang and there I thought I was being terribly witty - it just shows what sleep deprivation can do to the mind!

Disappointing isn't it? So long as everyone else awake at 04:00 and desperately trying to remember where the hospital is, or how to calculate the dosage of that $&*()!#$%@! drug, agrees with you, then who cares? ;)

BTW, the piece of music that Third Watch uses as its opening credits that your anonymous commenter below is trying to think of is 'Keep Hope alive' by The Crystal Method (which is just so right on so many levels...)

Merys said...

genuine story - sat as an observer with a COPD patient (thankfully very deaf) and Take my breath away by Berlin came on (from Top Gun). I started laughing first, then the attending paramedic picked up on it and the pair of us were crying with laughter within 2 minutes.
Still doesn't beat Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood for the anxious patients!

Anonymous said...

Crash - The Primitives
Traffic Accident - Sleeper
Fix Me - Barenaked Ladies
Novacain for the Soul - Placebo
Breathe - The Prodigy
Smack my Bitch Up - The Prodigy

actually, *anything* by Placebo would work. Or anything by Collapsed Lung

Anonymous said...

Let's see...

Beatles - Help
Beatsteaks - Disconnected
Bell book & candle - rescue me
Bob Dylan - Knocking on heaven's door
Britney Spears - Toxic
Bruce Springsteen - Workin' on the Highway
Celin Dion - My heart will go on
Cher - Alive again
Chicago - We can stop the hurtin'
Chris Rea - I can hear your heartbeat
Chris Rea - Take my breath away
Destiney´s Child - Survivor
Die Happy - Goodbye
Don Johnson - Heartbeat
Europe - The final countdown
Evanesence - Bring me to life
Farmer Boys - Here Comes The Pain
Fireside - Ambulance
Fury in the slaughterhouse - When i'm dead and gone
Gavin Rossdale - Adrenaline
Jethro Tull - Locomotive Breath
Killswitch Engage - Just barely breathing
Led Zeppelin - Stairway To Heaven
Madonna - Die another day
Manic Street Preachers - Suicide is painless
Metallica - For whom the bell tolls
Michael Jackson - Blood on the dancefloor
Midge Ure - Breath
Nightwish - End of all Hope
Nine - Time Has Come
Oasis - Hung in a bad Place
Opus - Life is Life
Patrick Nuo - Reanimate
Paul McCartney & The Wings - Live & Let Die
Queen - Who Wants To Live Forever
Reanimator - Life is Life (2000er Remix)
Resource - I just die in your arms
Sofa Surfers - Ambulance Of Death
Stew - Bleed
Sting - King of pain
The Corrs - Leave me breathless
The Laryngospasms - The little old Lady with her fractured Femur
The Ramones - I Wanna be Sedated
Tom Waits - Heartattack And Vine
Tom Waits - We're All Mad Here
Tom Waits - Wrong Side Of The Road
U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
U2 - Sunday, Bloody Sunday
U2 - Where the Streets have no name
Vic Reeves and the Wonderstuff - Dizzy

Anonymous said...

Stupid Stupid Stupid people. "They" are a silly pack of suited wankers who have long forgotten what its like to work a real case, with real patients. We have to put up with so much shit and they do something so senselessly petty and meanspirited as this. Probably some axe grinding moron wasting an ambo's time made a spurious complaint, and that was that. Gutless miserable bastards!

Ooh - I think I just vented a spleen...

Pink Floyd with Comfortably Numb, also PF with Run Like Hell.
Beatles - Bang Bang Maxwell's Silver Hammer
I'm sure I'll think up plenty more once I get to work for tonight's nightshift!

I had a partner one night who's a real bona fide rock star in his spare time - and a music buff. We dug up a playlist out of my ipod that included
Pachobel's Cannon,
the Gregorian Chant Adorate Deum
Magnificat
Miserere
Lesson 1 for Maundy Thursday
Ave Maria
Jerusalem
Rule Brittania
and The Tiumphal March from Aida
It was a night shift and pouring rain of course -
The partner of one of our patients riding up front with me turned to me and said "you guys could really freak someone out with this stuff!"
It gained us some classsic wierd looks from the other crews at the hospital as well!
Great night...
EffenQ Fella

Anonymous said...

Brilliant!!

How about Françoise Hardy, Tirez pas sur l'Ambulance? It's in French but it means "Don't shoot at the Ambulance".

David said...

I think most of them have been covered except:

Hot Hot Heat - Bandages

Anonymous said...

Anything by Placebo

darwin

David said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
David said...

I got another!
Anything by Send More Paramedics

http://www.sendmoreparamedics.com/