Behind the song: There Are No More Heroes
I hadn’t met any doctors who would listen or understand, I had felt ostracised from my present (able-bodied) community, we were neglected and forgotten. I wrote a song about it.
Hi friend!
I wrote this song during a time when I felt the world had given up on us.
I remember watching Luke Cage and a young boy from the street said something about there not being any heroes, and I said to myself “damn right, we’re on our own!”
At that time I was mainly housebound, I hadn’t met any doctors who would listen or understand, I had felt ostracised from my present (able-bodied) community, nobody outside fought for my patient group, we were neglected and forgotten. There are no more heroes, but we’ll do just fine on our own, I thought.
All proceeds from my music will go to Open Medicine Foundation for vital ME/CFS and Long Covid research. You can support the cause by purchasing the music on Bandcamp or iTunes.
If you can’t listen to music, then here are the lyrics.
I wrote this song when I was living with my parents in southern France. I was just starting to understand (after five years of being ill), that there was something seriously wrong in my body and that it might be ME/CFS.
I knew very little about the disease and I hadn’t yet met my community of other ME patients, although I was beginning to be aware that there were millions like me out there.
No one in Denmark was talking about this illness and I felt like I lived in a parallel world: How could no one be fighting for us when it is something that has destroyed so many lives.
I have often felt like this song was a bit prophetic, too. In 2019, a unanimous Danish parliament voted to change the perception of ME from a psychosomatic perception to a biomedical perception — the correct and scientific perception.
This brought several high-standing doctors into a frenzy. Without listening to the patients or reading in-depth, and critically, the scientific literature of ME, they opposed the decision openly — and angrily — in the Danish media. They thought it was dangerous for politicians to meddle in health matters and that making a psychosomatic illness biological was an abomination.
The Director of the Danish Health Authority spoke at a conference for doctors and said about the vote (my translation): “That day is not a star moment for me. The Danish Health Authority had very strongly indicated - almost with an exclamation point - that we were very concerned about something that was not somatic [ie not biological], and that it would do more harm than good.”
There are no more heroes. Do you see? Those in our society who are supposed to be on the side of patients, who are supposed to be our healers, turned against us, with massive consequences for our lived realities.
The song is also about nostalgia — a yearning for the happiness of a former place or time. It expresses a yearning for play and innocence:
Upstairs in
The attic, I found our old cartoons and masks
Remember
How we’d be lost in play
And for a time when we thought we could change the world:
We dreamt of saving the Earth
But the moon was too high
And a time when I felt the world was safe and we were indestructible:
Remember
How we would listen to the stars
They told us we’d live forever
But that was a lie
There Are No More Heroes is a song of nostalgia and grief, yes, but it is just as much a song of hope, a hope that we will all “sit under blue skies” and “meet again some sunny day.” I have met so many beautiful souls whose lives have been destroyed by illness. One day, I hope to meet you all in real life!
I also recently decided to paint this song! I so enjoyed painting my other song, Where Cold Hearts Go To Pray, I wanted to do it again. This was the result — I’m so pleased with it:
I play the flute, Jonas Müller (my brother) plays the piano and Matthew Adomeit plays the double bass. François Perdriau has mixed the song and Pete Maher mastered the song. I feel so incredibly lucky to be able to have my song accompanied by such excellent musicians. They really brought out the vibe in the song.
Tell me…
What are you nostalgic for?
Do you wish there were more heroes? What would they do?
What are your favourite lines from the song? Here are the lyrics
I’d love to know in the comments below.
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Beautiful painting for a beautiful song. This time of year I am so nostalgic for a body that can move more freely. As for heroes, you are one, Madelleine. You inspire me to create in a way that doesn’t wreck my health and that I can share what I make on my own terms. Many of my heroes show a fierce kindness when facing injustice. I need to let go of the self-sacrifice motif, as it is too easy to buy into the idea that destroying myself for others is heroic… because I’m a woman.
This got me a bit emotional. What an incredible song. You should submit this to the MAD Records Good Music Monthly for July (if you didn’t already).
The real heroes those who sacrifice their lives to make the lives of others better. People like teachers, public safety workers, doctors who treat regardless of profits, and those who treat everyone with love. It does seem that there are no more of them.