G             D
When I had my tracheotomy
       Am
I was blue and had stopped breathing
              Em               C
There was something wrong with me
G                          D
Doctors cut through the cartilage and skin
         Am
At the bottom of my throat
                C           Am          D
And then they snaked that trach tube in

[Chorus 1]
         Bm              Em
And I was one and a half
          Am
I was my parents only kid
                 Em           C
And they had lost two before that
 Bm            Em                           C
And growing up, I always knew how close I'd come
                                  D
Well, that must have been scary, Mom


[Verse 2]
G                      D
Gary Coleman, he was "Arnold" on TV
          Am                     Em              C
Well, I grew up watching him and Conrad Bain and Kimberly
G                          D
It turns out that he had a trach scar too
           Am
Where they cut into his throat
              C            Am       D
And then they threaded that tube through

[Chorus 2]
             Bm          Em
But that was much later on
        Am                                Em             C
In the year that he turned forty when his fanbase was all gone
        Bm                    Em
And his health was so touch-and-go
           C
His girlfriend proposed
                         D
But they broke up on a TV show

[Verse 3]
G                     D
Mary Wells, she was known as Motown's Queen
        Am                     Em        C
But laryngeal cancer left her unable to sing
G                         D
They tried radiation, multiple surgeries
      Am                                  C   Am    D
But she didn't have insurance and lost almost everything

Poor thing

[Chorus 3]
     Bm                        Em
But Diana Ross helped with her bills
        Am                              Em           C
Aretha Franklin tried her very best to help out Mary Wells
       Bm                      Em
And Dionne Warwick did all she could do
                     C
And Mary Wells, she pulled through
                     D
For one more year or two

[Verse 4]
G                   D
Dylan Thomas looked completely pale and weak
      Am                      Em          C
On a trip to New York City to promote his poety
G                                           D
Three straight days of drinking out in Greenwich and Chelsea
       Am                     C         Am            D
He was taken to the hospital, turned blue and not breathing

[Chorus 4]
  Bm               Em
And Caitlin Thomas said
          Am
When she walked into St Vincent's
       Em               C
"Is the bloody man dead yet?"
Bm                Em                             C
And later that day she got so drunk she was restrained
                       D
And her husband slipped away

[Verse 5]
G                D
Ray Davies had a tracheotomy
Am                                  Em           C
He was at St. Thomas' Hospital in London, aged thirteen
G               D
And during his long recovery
      Am
Nurses put him in a wheelchair
           C             Am       D
And they'd wheel him out onto a balcony (on a balcony)

[Chorus 5]
Bm                            Em
And down that evening sun did sink
         Am                            Em                C
Painting London and the river and that freaked-out future Kink
Bm                           Em
Waterloo lit up for one sick kid
          C                       D
And, at 23, he recorded a song about it