CAN STRESS KILL?

In the summer of 1977, I wrote the Cardboard Brains song Can Stress Kill? in a moment of chance and inspiration. It all happened in the practice room I’d built in my parents’ basement at 34 Clissold Road, Etobicoke—a sleepy suburban area just outside Toronto. If you’re in a place like Romania, imagine Etobicoke as the suburb of Toronto: reliable, practical, but not exactly glamorous.

I was waiting for the band to show up, and Vince Carlucci’s Les Paul was sitting there, calling my name. Vince, our guitarist, had left it behind, and I couldn’t resist picking it up and strumming a few chords. As I noodled around, my eyes fell on a copy of the Toronto Star lying nearby.

In the letters to the editor section, there was a headline that stopped me cold: Can Stress Kill? Intrigued, I read the letter. It was written by a guy working in a factory who hated his job. His words were raw, honest, and dripping with the discontent that punk music was all about. Lines like:

"Sometimes I feel like a robot."
"Standing here, it’s boring."

His frustration leapt off the page, and it hit me: this was a song waiting to happen. I didn’t need to overthink it—I used his letter almost verbatim to write Can Stress Kill? It was pure punk ethos: raw, unfiltered, and straight from the gut.

It reminded me of what Paul McCartney did with Paperback Writer. He took the mundane structure of a formal letter—"Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?"—and turned it into a piece of art. That’s exactly what I wanted to do: take this factory worker’s anonymous cry of frustration and amplify it into something louder, angrier, and more universal.

Looking back, the song feels timeless. The question Can Stress Kill? is just as relevant today as it was in 1977. The pressures of modern life haven’t gone away—they’ve only evolved. And that factory worker’s words? They resonate as much now as they did then.

For me, this song was more than just an anthem of frustration—it was a reminder of how inspiration can strike anywhere. Sometimes, it’s just a guitar, a newspaper, and the courage to turn someone’s quiet desperation into a roaring battle cry.