‘Trying To Kill M.E.’: The Streets song Mike Skinner wrote about his battle with chronic fatigue
When Mike Skinner ended The Streets in 2011, it seemed to be a decision out of the blue. At the time, he was only 32, and his career was still in its infancy. Yet, for various reasons, Skinner felt it was time to retire the highly-successful moniker and step off the conveyor belt.
A few years prior, Skinner was flourishing professionally, but his body couldn’t cope with the demands of carrying The Streets on his back and running his own record label. The stresses of life became too intense, and the musician stopped working, which made him reevaluate what was truly important to him.
As his battle with the illness continued, Skinner sought clinical help and was diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis (M.E.), more commonly known as chronic fatigue syndrome. It took away his creative spark, and rather than being the energetic party starter, who lit up festival stages worldwide, Skinner was stuck at home watching The Sopranos on repeat.
Ahead of the end of The Streets, Skinner opened up about this dark period in his life which began in 2008 after writing ‘Trying To Kill M.E.’, which appeared on Computers & Blues. In an interview with The Sun (via Daily Express), he said: “I don’t know what I really had, and no-one knows, but I had to stop working because that was definitely making it worse. So I switched everything off – I put the phone in the bin and switched off the email and just watched James Bond and The Sopranos.” He added: “People don’t understand it, and they don’t even trust it. It’s important to mention it so gradually we can all realise that it’s not just depression. That’s what people tend to think.”
“I was incapacitated. It seems to have faded now. But at the time, I think I was working too hard. It was important to just mention it, really. It was such a big thing for me. It lasted about a year at its worst. I had to stop working,” he also said.
In the opening verse of the heartbreaking track, he graphically explains the condition and sings, “Torturous virus talk to my eyelids, walk in my size nines, Is this depression or a lesson from inner pressure pressing? Either way, the fevers it deals me are evil.”
Later in the song, Skinner notes how every method he’s tried to cure himself failed and paints a gruesome picture of living with the misunderstood syndrome. “For this chronic fatigue, there’s no tonic, it seems,” he painfully adds.
Fortunately, there was light at the end of the battle, and his chronic fatigue didn’t last forever, but his desire to continue with The Streets had faded. If it weren’t for contractual obligations with his record label, there likely wouldn’t have been a fifth album by The Streets, and once he’d fulfilled his contract, Skinner skipped away to begin a new chapter out of the limelight.
Although he continued to make music with The D.O.T., he didn’t provide vocals to the group’s tracks and hibernated in the shadows. Thankfully, time proved to be the greatest healer for his relationship with The Streets, and in 2018, Skinner began releasing music under the alias once more after recapturing his creative verve.
