I am taking a theme from our news this week. If you live outside the UK you may not be aware of the wave of industrial action being taken by workers in the public sector, which has been going on since well before Christmas. Mail deliveries and transport services have been particularly affected, teaching staff are on strike today, but for me the most critical of these has been in healthcare. Having failed miserably to make any kind of meaningful intervention our wonderful government has finally agreed to discussions with nurses’ leaders – to predicable cries of “favouritism’ from other unions. The nurses have suspended their strike action, but after a massive vote in favour junior doctors are scheduled for a three day strike in a couple of weeks. Don’t get sick, people of the UK! But this has given me my theme for this week. Not many of the tunes are actually about real careworkers but it’s a good subject for songs, so I give you: doctors and nurses.

I’m starting with what is probably a fairly predictable choice to anyone who knows my musical tastes:

Jackson Browne is, as you are no doubt aware by now, a long time favourite of mine. I saw him play live at the Royal Albert Hall in London in June 2010 and Doctor My Eyes was in the setlist for the full band part of the show. It was a wonderful, unforgettable evening – one to tick off a bucket list that had been forming in my mind for nearly forty years! The song was a track on his debut album, simply called Jackson Browne, which was released in January 1972 and reached #53 in the US and #20 in Australia, though it didn’t make the UK charts. As debut albums go it is still, in my view, one of the best: he set himself a high standard which he has always maintained. This was released as a single in March 1972, and became a surprise hit in the US, peaking at #8. It also got to #45 in Australia but again it didn’t make the UK chart, though I’m ashamed on our behalf to say that an incredibly inferior, shrieky version by the Jackson 5 got to #9 here later that year. Whatever were we thinking! The date on this video is given as April 1972: it is the original promo made for the single, and by this time Jackson’s long time friend and collaborator David Lindley had joined him, playing pedal steel on this though he wasn’t on the record.

There are some live videos of this next one on YouTube but they are of dubious sound quality and poorly synchronised, so I’m going the trusted route of the record company’s official audio-only version:

Rock And Roll Doctor was the opening track on Little Feat’s fourth album, Feats Don’t Fail Me Now, released in August 1974. This was their breakthrough album in the US, where it reached #36 and earned the band a gold disc. It has never made the UK charts, but has sold enough here over the years to qualify for a silver disc – smaller numbers than the US, but still a notable achievement for a band who went under most people’s radar. One of those dubious quality live videos is a January 1975 performance on the BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test show – an absolute must watch for anyone who liked good rock music! Here’s the link if you’d like to see it.

I’m going for one of my occasional trips into the pop charts with this next one. My ex-wife liked this band and we had the album this was on – it kind of grew on me:

A little bit of synchronisation that has followed from the previous song is that this was also the opening track on the band’s fourth album. That album was Into The Gap, which was released in February 1984. The Thompson Twins, who took their name from the Tintin books, had been around in various configurations since 1977. At one time there had been as many as seven of them but revising the format down to three members was the point at which things really took off for them. Their previous album, the first as a three piece, had reached #2 in the UK and #34 in the US: this one was a UK #1 and a US #10. Doctor! Doctor! was the second track from the album to be released as a single, in January 1984, reaching #3 in the UK and #11 in the US. I rather liked their quirky style, and they knew how to make a good pop record.

Having called this post doctors and nurses I’ve realised that only one of the songs actually references nurses in its title. Still, as it is from another of my favourite bands, I think it merits its inclusion:

Jethro Tull released Nursie in September 1971 as one of the five tracks on an EP fronted by Life Is A Long Song, which reached #13 in the UK singles chart. I bought the EP and loved all of it, including this one which, in its original acoustic version, clocked in at all of 1’35” – as Ian Anderson says in this video, one of their shortest ever tunes! I’m playing this live performance from 2008 as I like the extended version too, and it is preferable to looking at a picture of an album sleeve. The whole EP was then included on a quasi-compilation double album, Living In The Past, released in June 1972, which peaked at #8 in the UK and #3 in the US. It was a kind of remastered greatest hits collection, and well worth the additional purchase. This was their first compilation record: there have now been seventeen of those in their 56 years together. The band is still going strong: having given us their first new album in nineteen years last year they are about to release another, scheduled for 23 April. They are drip feeding the tracks onto Apple Music and it is sounding good so far.

Where to next, I wonder? How about another of my favourite bands:

Guess which album that was on – that 2022 remix video didn’t include its title, did it, though it was on the original album! That was, of course, The Beatles and Doctor Robert, from their Revolver album, released in August 1966 and reaching #1 in both the UK and the US. Wikipedia has an interesting description of the song: “Doctor Robert was written by Lennon, although McCartney has since stated he co-authored it. Its lyrics celebrate a New York physician known for dispensing amphetamine injections to his patients. On the recording, the performance is interrupted by two bridge sections where the group vocals suggest a choir praising the doctor for his services.” If our parents had only known – but at least it is a song about a real doctor!

I’ve given you The Beatles, so it seems only right to balance them with the other great British band of those times. This is The Rolling Stones in one of their occasional forays into country mode:

Dear Doctor was a track on the Stones seventh album (ninth in the US), Beggars Banquet, which came out in December 1968. getting to #3 in the UK and #5 in the US. The song is typical of their use of a country music style for less serious lyrics, and has a distinctively different sound from their norm, as Bill Wyman is playing an acoustic double bass, Brian Jones is on harmonica and Charlie Watts is thrashing out the beat on a tambourine. It’s fun, and I’ve always liked it.

Another big name up next for today’s penultimate tune, and another of my favourite bands. I’m really spoiling you this week! This is Steely Dan, albeit it in audio-only form:

Doctor Wu is a track from Steely Dan’s fourth album, Katy Lied, which came out in March 1975 (when I was busy revising for my uni final exams!) and made #13 in both the UK and the US. The album cover features a picture of a katydid, an insect similar to crickets and grasshoppers, which is a visual pun on its title. That derived from one of the lines in this song: “Katy lies, you can see it in her eyes.” By the time of this record the band had largely broken up, as the other members disagreed with Walter Becker and Donald Fagen over touring – they wanted to, Becker and Fagen didn’t. This was very much a double header, which then became the model for subsequent albums.

Today’s final tune only has the word doctor as a kind of subtitle, but it is there twice, so that makes it alright, doesn’t it? Anyway, it is a stonkingly good song and an attractive video with which to close:

Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor Doctor) was a track on Robert Palmer’s fifth solo album, Secrets, released in June 1979 and peaking at #54 in the UK and #19 in the US. It was issued as a single the following month, getting to #61 in the UK but doing much better in the US, where it reached #14. It was written and first recorded in 1978 by an American singer-songwriter, Moon Martin (yeah, me neither) but wasn’t a hit for him. The chart placings were a surprise to me, as I’d always thought they would have been higher here – I guess that comes from buying his albums and playing them a lot, and thereby forming a mental image of loads of other people doing the same thing.

So there you have it for today. Six artists that I often play, and two who are here for the very first time – quite a good mix, really. I’m now off to check the news to see if the latest Brexit deal is still holding, or if we’re going to have our fourth Prime Minister inside twelve months when the neanderthals have finished spitting out bits of Sunak. Have a great week, and I’ll see you again soon 😊