Channel J: Delta Goodrem Got Me Through 2020

It’s been more than a year since the worldwide crisis that is the COVID-19 epidemic began and it seems like every time there’s a bit of good news, there’s a lot of bad news to accompany it.  Everyone was going into 2020 looking forward to making jokes at the end about hindsight and then the year responded by being so horrible that most of us didn’t want to remember it at all.

I was watching a video recently where the narrator talked about a song that helped him get through the year.  I think we all had that one thing that we held onto that got us through the toughest times of 2020, and I was no exception.  I, too, had a song that I turned to that seemed like it was released at just the right time to comfort and offer hope to its listeners.

This is the story of “Paralyzed” by Delta Goodrem.

In October 2018, Goodrem went in for surgery in order to remove a salivary gland, but complications from the surgery caused a nerve in her tongue to become paralyzed.  This brought with it issues which included trouble speaking.  Although she was fearful that this would mean an end to her singing career, this was not the first time she’d survived against all odds.  As a cancer survivor, there was no way she was going to let this obstacle get the better of her, and thus she started many months of speech therapy in order to regain control of her tongue and voice.

As she was working on re-learning how to speak, she was also writing her next album, even though there was no guarantee she was actually going to be able to record it.  I can imagine how frustrating that would’ve been, having a story you wanted to tell through song and being unable to do so.

Her career went on while she was in therapy.  A concert video was released in November 2018 and she managed to return as a coach on The Voice Australia when the eighth season aired from May to July of 2019, having already come a long way in her recovery.

Goodrem’s first new song since her surgery was a charity single titled “Let It Rain,” written to help raise money for the relief effort during Australia’s Black Summer.  The song showcased just how far Goodrem came since her surgery.  Both it and a concert special called Fire Fight Australia marked her return to performing.  Since then, several new singles have been released in promotion of her upcoming seventh studio album, Bridge over Troubled Dreams.  From the singles released thus far, the album is going to contain elements of survival and overcoming adversity.  Although a song titled “Keep Climbing” was the first single, it was “Paralyzed” that really spoke to me at the time it was released.

“Paralyzed” was released about four months into a global pandemic that was utterly terrifying.  We didn’t understand it fully and all we could do at the time was try to limit our contact with it, despite that there was a significant portion of the population who felt like the pandemic was a hoax or wildly overblown and whose inaction and/or deliberately reckless actions helped to spread it further.  I knew that the pandemic would likely kill my grandmother if it were to infect her and seriously harm my mother if it were to infect her, too.  I also didn’t know if I would get through it unscathed if I were to catch it.  There was, and arguably still is, a lot we don’t know about it.  The fact that it’s sticking around a lot longer than SARS is giving us a good opportunity to study it and learn from it, but I feel like the selfish and unintelligent people going about their lives having beach parties and spreading it through their own wilful ignorance are keeping the virus around a lot longer than if they’d just stayed home for a few months.

The lyrics to “Paralyzed” discuss a life put on pause due to circumstances beyond our control, and in light of the global pandemic, seems accidentally prophetic:

Doctor paused this life
He told me, “You won’t fly
Cancel everything
You need some time to heal
And it may take a year”
Reset the clocks again
Is this the way life goes?

Goodrem’s own healing process mirrored ours in 2020 when we had to put our lives on pause in order to make it through the worst medical disaster since 1918’s outbreak of influenza.  Her lyrics became our comfort when we had to cancel everything.

All of my plans have been silenced overnight
All that I know is paralyzed

Those of us who cared about our health cancelled all of our summer plans and stayed home, hoping that things would be over soon so that we could get back to our lives.  But as the virus continued to be spread by the more selfish members of our society, we found ourselves faced with the reality that we might be losing our Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations as well.

Can someone lend me a little patience?
It’s just the way life goes

It’s unfortunate that karma doesn’t always work in our favour and those who went ahead and endangered themselves and their families in order to act like life was normal actually got to have their normal Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations and may never face social or legal consequences, or even catch the virus itself.  I take comfort in the fact that enough of us did try to learn from history in order to prevent the repeating of it, but as sports leagues are now re-opening long before they should and governments are being pressured to keep the economy open, it feels like there are far too many people more interested in pretending it’s still 2019 and that we haven’t had to spend a year cleaning everything on a regular basis, wearing masks in public and denying ourselves the fleeting pleasures of going out for dinner or taking a trip with friends to a beach resort.  I wouldn’t mind going out of the country sometime or even visiting a mall a couple cities over but until this crisis is over, I’m going to do my best to keep from spreading this stupid thing, even though I’ve been feeling like I’m the only one who’s trying.

With a little time
With a little hope
With a little light, you’ll never know
For a little space
For a lot of love
Close your eyes and think of

 

A better time
Big dreams
Open your mind for you to find
A little strength inside
Stop and rewind

For most of 2020, I had Goodrem’s “Paralyzed” to help me feel like I’m not alone and that I’m not the only one trying to live through difficult times.  Although the situation in Goodrem’s song is far more personal in nature, the sentiment is something that all of us can appreciate.

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