Ode To Science

by DemFromCT

In honor of the veto threat by Bush over stem cell research, let's remind our readers about how bad this is for business (see Attack of the Clones). But let's also digress from polemics and enjoy some science music.

It's been years since Timothy Sellers, then a budding naturalist, licked a slug. Now he writes pop songs about scientists who were less absurd about their empiricism. Thirteen of them appear on "26 Scientists: Volume 1, Anning to Malthus," a CD that Mr. Sellers and his Los-Angeles-based band, Artichoke, recently released.

That's Mary Anning, the 18th-century Briton who assembled fossils to support her family and who first discovered the ichthyosaur. As in Artichoke's other songs, the one about Malthus mixes biographical detail ("Thomas Robert Malthus/the second son of eight kids/grew up with a stutter") with intellectual history ("with the revolution/came a lot of high hopes/Malthus took a good look/uh-oh uh-oh) and the primordial rock chords of G, D and C ("la la la la la/la la la la la/la la la la la").

In the small but slowly accreting world of science-themed music, songs tend to focus on processes and objects, as in Tom Lehrer's "Elements." Mr. Sellers, a 37-year-old artist and set painter, wants to change that balance, focusing on scientists "because people like to listen to songs about people," he says.

Any story mentioning Tom Lehrer catches my eye, as he is a long-time favorite, and an underappreciated political wit.

For those who don't know, Tom Lehrer is a schoolteacher who enjoyed a career during the 1950's and 1960's as a satirical songwriter. If you've never heard him, he's very similar to Mark Russell, except that he's funny.

Sellers may not be funny, but anyone who actually likes science enough to writes songs about it is certainly a refreshing breath of fresh air compared to the Luddites in the WH currently.

Though he's not a scientist, Mr. Sellers pursued a major in physics before switching to art at Williams College (where he and this reporter became acquainted). It seems natural to him that someone would want to dig up Mary Anning's past, Darwin's wandering attention span and Einstein's sleeping habits, or take on the challenge of putting "geocentric," "Copernican" and "phlogiston" into pop songs. The bigger challenge, Mr. Sellers says, was to "try to write every song so that people would dig it."

Cool. Perhaps a complementary CD should be sent to Bush and House leadership opposing the stem cell bill.

 

Comments

[DHinMI]

I love this:

If you've never heard him, he's very similar to Mark Russell, except that he's funny.

Mark Russell and the Capitol Steps are in my Whoppi Goldberg category: supposedly funny, but I'm still waiting to laugh.

But Tom Lehrer? Yeah, he's funny.

[DemFromCT]

Capitol Steps do have their moments. But Lehrer is consistently on target with his rapier wit.

I grew up in an era where the Daily Show of its time (That Was The Week That Was - known as TW3) was on network TV (NBC) and Lehrer was their best songwriter (see his album That Was The Year That Was).

[DemFromCT]

by the way, the complete CD collection of Tom Lehrer is here. Scroll down for samples.

[emptypockets]

Tom Lehrer is one of the greats, though unfortunately not a timeless great (his lyrics don't sound as relevant today as some of his peers' still do). His lyrics need a little updating to keep with the times:

"Oh, we are the folk-[blog] army; /every one of us CARES... /we all hate poverty war and corruption / unlike the rest of you squares."

See also Who's Next, IMF, and Smut. He also hit the nail on the head with the broadcasting of war:

"While we're attacking frontally, watch [Hannity and O'Reilly] describing contrapuntally the cities we have lost..."

Unfortunately, it was Rumsfeld (or was that Ashcroft singing?) who took the last lines to heart: "I'll look for you when the war is over/ an hour and a half [er, better make that decade and a half] from now!"

For another good science song, They Might Be Giants have made a good stab once or twice (not sure if they were their originals or covers of childhood favorites): "The sun is a mass/ of incandescent gas/ where hydrogen is built/ into He-li-um..."

[jonnybutter]

First you get down on your knees/Fiddle with your rosaries/Bow your head with great respect and: genuflect! genuflect! genuflect!

[Plutonium Page]

I just found this article in the NYT about a singing nerd named Timothy Sellers. Looks like you can buy the songs through iTunes, which I might just do.

Also check out MC Hawking. This guy put together rap songs with Stephen Hawking's voice, songs like "F*ck the Creationists". Apparently, Dr. Hawking thinks the songs are funny as hell, and is flattered (what a cool guy).

[DemFromCT]

You'd love Tom Lehrer, Page. The elements are a classic. Check the sample here.

[emptypockets]

If you want to hear the Elements, I highly recommend this flash-animated version:

http://www.privatehand.com/flash/elements.html

[DemFromCT]

brilliant.. thanks, emptypockets.

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