Why we are turning to darkly funny music during the coronavirus. --- Throughout history, music has been an integral part of how people cope with epidemics. Sometimes, we put them in familiar musical contexts to make them less scary (less “novel,” you could say). While the rest of the world called the 1918 outbreak “the Spanish Flu,” at home in Spain it was often described as “the Naples Soldier” after a song from a popular opera; one of the librettists claimed it was because the tune was just “as catchy” as the disease. […] The themes underpinning many of their songs—passion, intensity, body heat—reminds me that art gets much of its meaning from confronting the ephemerality of existence. We want things deeply and quickly because life is, indeed, short. And musicians know that; they usually only get a few minutes per song. Who better to guide us in how to squeeze as much out of life as possible?