Watch Elvis Costello’s “Music & Memory” Alzheimer’s PSA
In 1989, Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney co-wrote Costello’s single “Veronica,” a song about Costello watching his grandmother suffer from Alzheimer’s and dementia, wondering if it was at all comforting to her to be trapped in her memories. Talking to Rolling Stone, Costello calls the song “a wildly hopeful song about a dismal subject.” And now Costello has made a PSA for Music & Memory, a charity that aims to help stimulate the memories of people with Alzheimer’s and dementia by playing them music that they might remember. Dan Cohen, the charity’s founder, has learned that people suffering from degenerative memory disorders can react to their favorite songs in ways that they can’t react to much else. Here’s Costello’s PSA:
Music & Memory provides personalized playlists to patients who might be able to use them, and I’m pretty sure we can all get behind that.