Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCII--Ben Lee: Catch My Disease

Listening to piped in music at work can sometimes be painful, but every now and again a little gem will force its way out of the loudspeakers and into my heart.  Such was the case with this week's tune--and it gives me a little joy as I count down the hours until retirement (somewhere in the many thousands...).

Ben Lee began performing at the all too young age of 14 with his first band Noise Addict.  By 1995 the band had broken up and Lee embarked on a solo career that has lasted to this day.  Lee hasn't had a lot of commercial success here in the States, but in his native Australia he's had three top fifteen albums and three top forty singles.  He's also won three ARIA's (Australia's equivalent of our Grammy) and been nominated for several others.  Over the course of the last twenty-three years Lee has released 14 albums and three EP's.  While his career has slowed considerably commercially, Lee released his latest album in 2017 and continues to tour.  He is currently married to the actress Ione Skye, who some may remember from the film Say Anything... (among others).

"Catch My Disease" was released in 2005 on the album Awake Is the New Sleep (nice title).  While it was never released as a single here in America, it was a success in Australia, reaching #27 on their charts and also winning Lee an ARIA for Song of the Year.  Surprisingly enough, the song is used quite often in medical TV shows here in the States....

I've noticed in songs featured over the past few weeks and a few to be featured in the upcoming weeks, how many of the songs are ones that I've picked for the sheer joy they've given me.  Which isn't to say they are vacuous pop songs, just that they have made me very happy in the listening.  And "Catch My Disease" was written specifically for such moments--Lee had been known as a somewhat somber artist until visiting India where he was encouraged to put joy into the world.  I originally thought this song was about asking a woman to catch his disease, which was love, but actually it's asking all of us to catch a little joy in our day to day lives, and hey, that's not such a bad message.  Anyhoo, the song opens with emaycee fave hand claps in conjunction with a pulsating bass drum, slowly adds in some keyboards and a little guitar, and then Lee begins singing little vignettes, all of which are punctuated with the line, "And that's the way I like it."  Lee does a nice job of both capturing the joy he feels vocally and spreading it to the rest of us--and joy ain't such a bad disease to catch.  In the end, this one's just fun--it makes me smile every time it comes on at work, and God knows I can use all of that I can get in my workday....

Lyric Sheet:  "I hear Beyonce on the radio/And that's the way I like it/And that's the way I like it/They don't play me on the radio/But that's the way I like it...."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee