Listen to This Song Parody about End-of-Life Care

Credit: YouTube.com

You’ve never heard Rihanna and Eminem like this.

ZDoggMD rewrote the lyrics to their song, “Love The Way You Lie,” but with a twist. The new parody song, “Ain’t The Way to Die,” speaks candidly about the dying process and what patients and doctors go through when someone dies.

Unlike most song parodies, this one isn’t funny (or at least, it doesn’t try to be, ZDoggMD adds); It focuses on what real people go through every day.

You can find endless parody songs online, and even find a few that talk about dying, but most of them have tongues firmly planted in their cheeks. These remixes poke fun at dying, giving the songs a lighthearted tone. The “remixers” responsible for “Ain’t The Way to Die” initially wanted such a change of tone for their song, too. However, when they heard the stories of the people they spoke with, they instantly changed their minds about the feel of the remix.

The chorus repeats the words,

“Just gonna stand there and watch me burn

End of life and all my wishes go unheard
They just prolong me and don’t ask why
It’s not right because this ain’t the way to die, ain’t the way to die”

It takes on the subject from the patient’s and the doctor’s perspective. The patient says,

“I can’t tell you what I really want
You can only guess what it feels like
And right now it’s a steel knife in my windpipe
I can’t breathe but ya still fight ‘cause ya can fight
Long as the wrong’s done right—protocol’s tight”

The doctor’s lines repeat this theme over Eminem’s original rap, saying:

“Palliate, relieve pain, get him home, explain
Critical care? Just hypocritical when it’s so insane
But they insist I shock his heart again so I persist
Guess that’s why they say that love is pain”

Credit: YouTube

Dr. Zubin Damania, aka ZDoggMD, is a proponent of specialized end-of-life care. Like other physicians such as Dr. Atul Gawande, he pushes for better conversations about death. People are afraid to talk about their post-death wishes. Dr. Damania hopes that this parody song will change that.

The musicians in charge of the remix got some unexpected help from documentary film makers to create a music video for the song. What makes the remix even more powerful is its use of real ventilator sounds.

One of the cornerstones of physicians’ push for better conversations about end-of-life care has to do with ventilators. These life-saving devices are essential for some, but can be tortuous for others. They require a painful tube inserted into the esophagus to help patients breathe. For patients who want to die a peaceful, painless death, ventilators can be a nightmare.

“Ain’t The Way to Die” is a serious look at what we care about in our own lives, and what we want for the people we love.

Take a look at the parody video below, along with the original: