Music, among its many charms, is therapy. In its myriad forms, music can comfort, uplift, and inspire, all of these sorely needed, it turns out, during a public health emergency.
As a means of offering gratitude to the health care workers during the coronavirus pandemic, WLNG, the Sag Harbor radio station that has been broadcasting since 1963, is “roadcasting,” taking its Rolling Roadcaster bus to the East End’s hospitals on Fridays, where at 7 p.m. the “WLNG Thank You Song,” a different selection each week, plays over the bus’s sound system.
Listeners are asked to “blast it in their cars and homes to say thanks to our heroes on the front lines,” said Bill Evans, an owner of the station.
On Friday, the Rolling Roadcaster played Sam and Dave’s 1968 R&B classic “I Thank You.” “We followed it up with the Beatles’ ‘Here Comes the Sun’ and Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believing,’ ” said Anthony, WLNG’s D.J. on weeknights, as hospitals around the country have taken to playing those tracks when recovered Covid-19 patients are released and sent home. The station also broadcast “You Are the Champions,” a reimagined rendition of Queen’s “We Are the Champions” by that band with the vocalist Adam Lambert, recorded this year as a tribute to health care workers on the front lines.
Five or six songs are played, Mr. Evans said, “and the hospital staff gets a chance to get a break and dance.”
The Roadcaster will roll up to Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead tomorrow at 7 p.m. to play a new thank-you song and songs celebrating patients’ recovery. Selections are yet to be chosen, Anthony said this week, and will be based in part on listener requests.
The Rolling Roadcaster is to visit Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Hospital in Greenport on Friday, May 15. “It’s our way of bringing some ‘feel good’ to our hospital workers,” Mr. Evans said.
