“I seen pain, I felt the losses. Attended funerals and seen coffins.” I could listen to his music every day. Macklemore portrays a true problem in our society. Drugs are a problem. We have a tendency to ignore issues that do not directly involve us. We have the tendency to just prescribe and shoo away a patient. The real problem is we don’t care. Look at everything we have done with society, where it’s totally fine to over-prescribe and for children to have a full pharmacy to take before bed. I have seen it firsthand with a child I used to work with, taking medication before going to bed. She would zone out and not be herself, you had to yell just to get her attention. Is this a way to live? Is this the view of life to give our younger generations? Where do we draw the line with all of this.
It is admirable when we see a musician creating songs to spread the word about an issue. Macklemore does just that. He takes the reality of situations and turns them into music. He doesn’t always rap about getting money or doing drugs like we see. His songs have touched on topics such as gay rights, equality, and drug abuse and over-prescribing. Songs like these should be on the radio and spread around.
“My drug dealer was a doctor, doctor. Had the plug from Big Pharma, Pharma. He said that he would heal me, heal me.” This is the chorus from the latest song “Drug Dealer”. This song goes in depth to show the issues that we, as a whole, face with big pharmaceutical companies. They choose to over-prescribe people just to make money. Given some medication is good, but there is still a huge issue related to the amount a person takes and side effects. No one should have to deal with medication issues because they are prescribed too many. That is not just, why is this not being looked at more? Money plays a huge factor, but like I said before we need to start caring as a society more about each other in it.
“Only motivation for what the dealer's supplying.” This is what it is like to feel addicted. To be drained by the drugs you are using. Macklemore does not hold back when he raps about these topics. People should be inspired to make change from his music to help others and not be judgmental. We only have so much time on this earth. Why would we not want to help each other out. This music is what we should be listening to and feel motivated to make a difference. We should start worrying about over-prescribing people, and worrying about people who are addicted.
“Put down the pen and look in my eyes. We're in the waiting room and something ain't right.” What happened to helping people because of that? Now we are so concerned with money that we overlook the issues the client is going through. If we prescribe them more then we don’t have to worry about them, which is what we do most of the time. If we just have somewhere else to put them and don’t see it, then we don’t need to worry. We need to change this thought. Macklemore has been spreading the word and inspiring change, now it’s our turn to continue.
