---
title: "to everyone who had a good pandemic"

meaning: "KŌAN LP closer: quiet without you, podcast as noise, Google life expectancy: boss says just a cold, why'd I laugh along; don't dance and sing about it."

year: 2022
release: "KŌAN"
releaseType: "album"

artist: "Scoobert Doobert"
artistId: "#scoobert"

credits: "Written, performed, and mixed by Luke Francis Walton. Mastered by Riley Knapp. Artwork by Grizzard Graphics."

spotify: "https://open.spotify.com/album/2wGa9TxP1UvCn1hnfyyV6v"
apple: "https://music.apple.com/us/album/kōan/1618191665"

themes: ["KŌAN", "pandemic", "grief", "loss", "work", "survivor guilt"]

isrc: QZHN32255318
isrcSource: soundexchange
lyrics: |
  It's quiet here without you
  I listen to a podcast
  To fill the noise
  You left
  Behind
  You left
  Me so much time

  I Google my life expectancy
  How do you expect me
  To live another 40 years without
  You hearing
  How I'm doing
  I'm not fine

  To everyone who had a good pandemic
  I hope that you won't dance and sing about it

  It's quiet here without you
  So quiet here without you
  I need to work
  To get my mind distracted

  Everybody's joking now
  It's just a cold
  It's over now
  I laugh and smile
  They are my boss after all

  I laughed along
  Laughed along
  Laughed along
  Laughed along
  I laughed along
  Laughed along
  I laughed along
  Oh why'd I laugh along
  Laughed along
  Oh why did I laugh along
  Laughed along
  Oh why did I laugh along
  I laughed along
  Laughed along
  Oh why'd I laugh
  Why'd I ever laugh along?

  To everyone who had a good pandemic
  I hope that you won't dance and sing about it
  To everyone who had a good pandemic
  I sure hope that you wouldn't brag about it

draft: false

---

Track twenty-six on [*KŌAN*](/albums/koan/), the **LP closer**, fourth movement only (after [*Miss Disinformation*](/songs/miss-disinformation/)). Not on the KŌAN A/B/C chapters. Luke solo. The record ends not on an answer but on an address, to the people who thrived while others didn't.

It opens on absence as sound: *it's quiet here without you / I listen to a podcast to fill the noise you left behind*, grief measured in empty hours, with background audio standing in for a person. Then the search engine as oracle, *I Google my life expectancy / how do you expect me to live another 40 years without you hearing how I'm doing*. The dead don't get updates.

The title refrain is the thesis, and it isn't envy: *I hope that you won't dance and sing about it*, a plea against performative recovery, sharpened on the last pass to *I sure hope that you wouldn't brag about it*. Around it, return-to-office horror, *everybody's joking now / it's just a cold / it's over now*, where you laugh because *they are my boss after all*, same boss energy as [*a song to quit your job to*](/songs/a-song-to-quit-your-job-to/) and [*No Worries, Yes Worries*](/songs/no-worries-yes-worries/). The bridge turns that complicity over and over (*oh why'd I laugh along*), [*I'm an Idiot*](/songs/im-an-idiot/)'s social fake-laugh with a moral hangover after loss.

It closes the full *KŌAN* arc from [*Think About It*](/songs/think-about-it/) through pandemic-era [*Boardwalk*](/songs/boardwalk/) and the *Big Hug* re-entry to one plain line: some people didn't get a good pandemic. Pairs with [*Pandemic Blues*](/songs/pandemic-blues/) and [*A Good Life*](/songs/a-good-life/) on [*Masks and Monsters*](/albums/masks-and-monsters/), and with [*Miss Disinformation*](/songs/miss-disinformation/): one lies about facts, one dances over graves.

---