I suppose, unlike familiar pop song subjects such as love, hate and drugs, songwriters face a particularly tricky challenge when it comes to penning a meaningful song about the environment. After all, what rhymes with fracking? ‘Morally lacking’ maybe? Admittedly, ‘Financial backing’ does though! So it strikes me that it can be difficult to pull off an “environmental song” without devolving into preachiness. It’s difficult to come up with songs that work as songs but successfully walk the line between sincere and sanctimonious.
So What Tracks Did I Come Up With?
There are a number of types of environmental songs to consider. There’s those that chronicle environmental ravages and aim to inspire awareness or action; there’s those that simply celebrate the beauty, wonder and regenerative capacity of nature and then there’s those that try and address the bigger picture.
Neil Young – After The Gold Rush
This comes from the same era as Marvin Gaye. The song seems to view our civilisation as a lost cause when it comes to conservation, with the cycle set to begin all over again in the future at “a new home in the sun.” The chorus too “Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 1970s” makes it abundantly clear that If we don’t change our ways, she may need to board a spaceship and find refuge elsewhere.
Johnny Cash - Don’t Go Near the Water
This is a song that really hits the environmental issues head on, air pollution, water pollution, the lot. I must admit the lyrics are a bit overly preachy for my liking with lines like “We’re torturing the earth and pourin’ every kind of evil in the sea, We violated nature and our children have to pay the penalty” but on the other hand this is Johnny Cash, the Man in Black and if he wanted to preach to us we’d better be listening.
The Eagles - The Last Resort
A simple story about the American West and its rugged allure that continually draws new people to it who inevitably then go on to destroy the very values (serenity, pristine wilderness, solitude etc) that they sought there in the first place. Similar things have happened in this country too. Don and Glen’s lyrics “They call it paradise, I don’t know why, Call someplace paradise, kiss it goodbye.” Are spot on and a warning that nature’s beauty must be embraced carefully rather than commercialising then strangling it. The next track is in a similar vein:
Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi
I’m sure for many people, this is the environmental song to end all environmental songs. With its chorus: “Don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone, They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.” The idea of replacing the landscape with a giant car park is particularly offensive to most of us, considering that we think of car parks as ugly, dirty concrete slabs that seem to be empty more often than they’re in use. People are becoming more and more aware of their impact as the things they enjoyed began to disappear.
Joni could've turned this classic into a preachy rant. Instead she opts for a breezy, upbeat feel and a bit of sarcasm (or is it satire?): "They took all the trees, put ’em in a tree museum, And they charged all the people a dollar and a half just to see ’em." Genius !!
Marillion – Season’s End
A beautiful song about the hole in the ozone layer, and how we’ll explain to our children what we’ll leave behind for them by way of our actions. Season's End was Marillion's first album after the departure of Fish and signified a departure away into different territories. The lyrics of Season’s End say it all really.
“We’ll tell our children’s children why we grew so tall and reached so high, we left our footprints in the earth, and punched a hole right through the sky. We’ll tell them how we changed the world, and how we tamed the sea, and seasons they will never know in England. So watch the old world melt away, a loss regrets could never mend. You’ll never miss it ’til it’s gone, so say goodbye, say goodbye to season’s end.”
And again, nothing’s changed in the 30 years since its release!!!
The Pretenders - My City Was Gone
Another updating of Big Yellow Taxi. Only Chrissie Hynde could make a song about land use and 'development' sound so nasty. The track is all about Chrissie returning to her hometown of Akron in Ohio, only to discover that over-development had robbed the city of its character. Worse for her were the environmental infractions, which she colourfully describes as, “my pretty countryside, Had been paved down the middle. By a government that had no pride.” I love this track, Chrissie’s voice drips with sarcasm and disgust. “The farms of Ohio had been replaced by shopping malls, and muzak filled the air from Seneca to Cuyahoga Falls.”
Mentioned In Dispatches
Jamiroquai – Emergency on Planet Earth
Jamiroquai track that highlights several social and environmental issues affecting the world. Confused by the lack of action being taken, Jamiroquai asks if “anybody’s listening?” as he screams out that “we got emergency on planet Earth.”
Eddie Vedder – Society
This is from the film “Into The Wild.” Vedder takes us through a withering indictment of a modern culture obsessed with material gain at the expense of deeper connections with nature and each other, “It’s a mystery to me, we have a greed with which we have agreed, You think you have to want more than you need, until you have it all you won’t be free.”
Michael Jackson - The Earth Song
Probably the most well-known environmental song ever made. It uses a series of questions to help us all reflect on our responsibility to the earth, Michael’s main question is “What have we done to the world?” – I’ve not gone into this track further because, quite simply because I don’t like it!!
Midnight Oil – Earth and Sun and Moon
Allegedly inspired by a TV show about NASA astronauts who had gone into space and looked back down on the earth. They see the outline of the continents, the rivers, the weather patterns and of course they see the stains, the oil spills in the gulf and whatever else is wrong.
R.E.M. –Fall on Me (Oh, Acid Rain)
The song which appears on their 4th album, ‘Lifes Rich Pageant’ is one of the band's early compositions about environmentalism, discussing acid rain.
Belly – Feed the Tree
From the Star album, this is Tanya Donelly’s driving ditty to respect and commitment to each other and to the cycle of life. Quite like this track!!
Lou Reed - Last Great American Whale
The lyrics say it all “Americans don’t care too much for anything, land and water the least, they’ll shit in a river or dump battery acid in a lake and complain if they can’t swim.” Nuff said !!
Gorillaz’s - Plastic Beach!
The trippy little title track of the album of the same name. A great album in my opinion. Theme of the track to me is it's a shame about that floating landfill in the ocean, Styrofoam, plastic, trash, scraps all collected in the ocean like an island. – A very current subject even though the track is 10 years old.
We’re All At Fault
My last track isn’t strictly an environmental song it covers the whole bigger picture and suggests we’re all at fault, we’re all responsible for the future and its all of us that must change things.
Rush - Second Nature
From 1988s patchy ‘Hold Your Fire’ album. Second Nature is conciliatory in its message: If we can't reach perfection in this world then let's at least settle for some degree of improvement. Writer Neil Peart is quoted as saying "Sometimes we have to accept something less than total victory," "It's like the difference between compromise and balance. The politician who campaigns for clean air but doesn't want to close down the stinking factory in his area because thousands of people will lose their jobs”.
The line "We fight the fire -- while we're feeding the flames", for me hits the whole environmental issue squarely on the head. Yes we all wants a better world without pollution. Yet we keep polluting!! That the crux of it all and a sad but accurate description of the modern world we live in.
A memo to a higher office
Open letter to the powers that be
To a god, a king, a head of state
A captain of industry
To the movers and the shakers...
Can't everybody see?
It ought to be second nature
I mean, the places where we live
Let's talk about this sensibly
We're not insensitive
I know progress has no patience
But something's got to give
I know you're different
You know I'm the same
We're both too busy
To be taking the blame
I'd like some changes
But you don't have the time
We can't go on thinking
It's a victimless crime
No one is blameless
But we're all without shame
We fight the fire while we're feeding the flames
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