I'm Not Claiming a Taylor Swift Song Saved Jim Irsay From a Fatal Overdose. Correction: That is Precisely What I'm Saying.

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WARNING: This post may contain references to music from before you were born. Reader discretion is advised. 

In the normal course of human affairs, an incident in which a man with a history of drug issues is pulled back from the brink of death, credit for saving his life would go to the first responders who, as their job title suggests, got to the scene quickly and administered medical care. Like this one, for example:

And to their eternal credit, the EMTs and police who raced to Jim Irsay's home, got to him in time, and saved him from a terrible fate. 

But in case you've lost track of the time, this is the 2020s. And all things that good and positive in this world flow from one place and one place only.

Source - A cop who was racing to help Jim Irsay during the NFL owner's medical scare last month got a bit of an assist from Taylor Swift … 'cause new police video, obtained by TMZ Sports, shows the officer was blaring the popstar's music as he rushed to the emergency.

The scene was captured on a Carmel Police Dept. dash camera at around 4:30 AM back on Dec. 8 …

In the footage, you can see that right after the call was received … a policeman turned on his overhead lights -- and his Swift tunes -- to try to get to Irsay's house as soon as possible.

The officer blew through stop signs, at least one red light … and swerved in and out of lanes -- all while "Cruel Summer" poured out of his vehicle's speakers.

At one point, the cop appeared to reach a high rate of speed as Swift could be heard belting out, "He looks up grinning like a devil, it's new!"

To pay off that earlier warning, back in the '80s there was a dance song one could not avoid at the clubs by a one-hit wonder named InDeep called, "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life." If you're Jim Irsay waking up to face a new day last December 9th you could have said "Last Night the Greatest Pop Star the World Has Ever Known Saved by Life." Without fear of contradiction.

Because who among us cannot argue that she didn't? There's not a driver in existence who hasn't, at some point, hit the gas a little extra hard because a particular piece of music hit us just right. Gave us that extra little jolt of adrenaline. Sharpened our senses. Made us more alert but also more interested in acceleration. Your ears are directly connected to your right foot. It's science. 

Personally, the Taylor song in question doesn't do that for me the way it did that officer. To me, there's just one "Cruel Summer," and it belongs to Bananarama (old music reference No. 2). Which is fine; she doesn't write her soulful ballads and bittersweet relationship songs for me. I long ago decided that if I ever get a speeding ticket, I'm taking my appeal before a judge. And in open court I'm going to pull out a Bluetooth and play the opening chords of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" from Rocky III (third and final reference). And throw myself on the mercy of the court. Explain that it's physically impossible to hear this inspiring anthem of trying to recapture your lost passion, just a man and his will to survive, without feathering the pedal just a bit. And by the time I get to the part about not losing your grip on the dreams of the past and fighting to keep them alive, I expect to be walking out of there with a full dismissal. So I get where this officer was coming from. 

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Does this mean definitively that Taylor saved Irsay's life? Not exactly. But it didn't hurt. Time was of the essence. Seconds counted. And if that squad car stereo had happened to land on some bland Niall Horan tune or dreary Ed Sheeran ditty, the worst might have happened. So thanks are in order to the true hero in this story. And to the first responders who are fans of this true hero's music.