Jonathan Coulton
Diseases of Yore
[Intro: Jonathan Coulton]
Maybe you’ll never die
Maybe you’re going to live forever and ever

[Verse 1: MC Frontalot]
You don’t meet a lot of people in emergency rooms
Who’ve got Anthracosis, Consumption
Or Womb Fever. June Cleaver never suffered
She had the penicillin, no expiration when she mothered
Her no-good little death-proof brats
Living little ones once were preciouser than that
Living anybody used to be a miracle, yo
You’d get et by the festering hysterical flow
Of madnesses and bad diseases of mole
Lung, eye, and humor, spirit and soul
All these afflictions engender aversions:
I catch Green Sickness to match with the virgins;
Scrofula coughs that I cast askance;
Ever since Black Scurvy, I can’t wear pants
And I can’t but dance with glee that it’s not then now
“I bet you got the Tarantism.” – and how!

[Hook: Jonathan Coulton]
Maybe you’ll never die
Maybe you’re going to live forever
And never have anything wrong with you
And until you do
You won’t worry about it
Cause you’re probably fine;
Maybe you should pretend to forget to remember
The bullet that’s meant for you
'Til it’s overdue
And it runs you through
[Verse 2: MC Frontalot]
I got Galloping Dropsy and Cheese Washer's Lung
Leaves me with Asthenia, the Croup, and a dung heap
Of unbearably fetid excreta, from which I get re-infected
Nice to meetcha—how about a hug? I swear my Ichor is down
And I got over the Pestilence. It was intense. I astound
The historians. I’m Picardy Sweaty
Just ran out of leeches (that I need) (such as for bloodletting)
It’s upsetting! There, I’m upset!
Dose of French Distemper throbbing up in my head!
I don’t go into Bilious Flux just yet, but about to
Give out a shout to the Cholera. Doubt you
Could follow a charting of the manifold ways I’m ill:
Iliac Passion, Spelter's Chill
Weaver's Bottom, and a Melancholy Ache
If my fever doesn’t break, raise a glass at the wake

[Hook]

[Verse 3: MC Frontalot]
Yea verily, shouldn’t ought to put in the belly
Ague Cake with the Colloid Jelly
Now you come telling me check in the mind
That all of these infirmities combined define a
Time-traveling hypochondria epidemic (one I suffer under)
But on the other side of the globe from affluence
The Death is still thriving. Thus, contract thence
[Hook x2]