Music Lists

15 Songs to Sing While You Wash Away Coronavirus

We've all been taught to sing "Happy Birthday" twice, but times are tough, and we need a change.

Since the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak reached the U.S., a number of states—including Washington, New York, and California—have called a state of emergency and canceled large gatherings.

Originally scheduled to take place this week, Austin's South by Southwest was canceled for the first time in its 32-year history. Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden both just called off rallies in Ohio due to fears surrounding the virus, while Coachella is in talks to be rescheduled for October. As the number of confirmed cases climbs, more and more employees are working from home. Harvard University is evacuating its dorms for the remainder of the semester. Times are tough.

Still, experts assure us that as long as we're generally healthy, we don't need to worry so much about coronavirus. But with so much media coverage and the reality of quarantine feeling more imminent, what better way to help us through the crisis than with song?

Health officials maintain that the best way to ease the spread of coronavirus is to avoid touching your face and, of course, wash your hands thoroughly–for at least 20 seconds. Singing "Happy Birthday" twice is a tried-and-true method, but times are changing. It's 2020. We need better songs to wash our hands to.

So, here are just a few options to sing to yourself while you get your hands squeaky clean. Go ahead and sing them out loud. We won't judge.

“Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift

'Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play
And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate
Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
I shake it off, I shake it off
Heartbreakers gonna break, break, break, break, break
And the fakers gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake
Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
I shake it off, I shake it off

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songs to wash hands to

Culture Feature

Why "The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy" Is the Book of 2020

Don't Panic.

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In the opening pages of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Earth is destroyed. Now if that doesn't scream 2020 so far, what does?

In Douglas Adams's 1979 novel, which premiered as a radio series on BBC Radio4 in 1978 (42 years ago—but more about the significance of that number later), Earth is suddenly blown up in order to make room for an intergalactic superhighway. Now, in a year that has—after only 3 months, people—given us a contentious, confusing democratic primary, the death of Kobe Bryant, new and worsening facts about our climate and habitat at large, appalling leadership, and of course the rapid spread of and global shutdowns by the coronavirus (COVID-19), it seems impossible to turn to any source for comfort.

Enter The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: a novel that starts with the global annihilation that we might be heading for and then follows the characters as they cope with new realities, with isolation and loss, an endless information source that brings with it endless anxiety, and an egomaniacal, arrogant, selfish, attention-craving president of the galaxy.

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