In case anyone missed my epic #ClimateRocks thread last year, with 25 songs about #climatechange, I've collected it all together in two posts on my blog:
#ClimateSongs
Part 1: https://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/2023/06/climate-rocks/
Part 2: https://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/2024/02/climate-rocks-again/
We had Midnight Oil earlier in the thread, with Beds are Burning, which is often assumed to be about climate change, but is really about Indigenous Land rights. Given their legacy of protest songs, it's not surprising the band have turned their full attention to climate change.
Nearly all the songs on the new album deal with the climate crisis in some way, so give the whole thing a listen.
(Thanks to @takvera for alerting me to this album)
https://progressiverockcentral.com/2022/02/20/midnight-oil-resist/
#ClimateRocks #ClimateSongs
Last #ClimateRocks of the year. After a year of record temperatures, and useless climate policy negotiations, what could be more fitting than #MidnightOil's "Rising Seas", from their 2022 album Resist (featuring the warming stripes on the cover).
"Every child put down your toys/
And come inside to sleep/
We have to look you in the eye and say we sold you cheap/
Let's confess we did not act
With serious urgency/
So open up the floodgates
To the rising seas"
Macy's verse on climate change is pretty straightforward:
"All I want for Christmas is to have a chance /
So please take care of the environment /
Take Mr. Gore more seriously /
And do what you can to stop global warming"
The Mr Gore reference dates it a bit, but then it praises "Barack", and:
"I hope that your successor
Does the things he or she should /
That Mr. Trump, he's an entertaining guy /
But let's face it, really is he qualified?
Understated, perhaps?
This week's #ClimateRocks is a festive tune from #MacyGray, called "All I Want for Christmas".
It's packed full of sensible Christmas wishes:
"All I want for Christmas is a whole bunch of stuff /
But anything that you can buy me won't be enough /
'Cause everything I'm hoping for is intangible /
Like free health care and gun control"
Makes me wonder why there aren't more seasonal songs like this. Too earnest?
Ela's music is usually described as electro-pop, but I much prefer the term DIY techno-punk I saw in one review. Or, as she describes it: "bright music for dark times".
Megapunk is the perfect upbeat protest song:
"We can’t seem to find /
A reason to stay quiet /
We’re afraid we’ll run out of time"
and
"You don't want to understand /
You're choosing to lead us apart /
But against all odds /
You still won't make us stop"
For this week's #ClimateRocks, to mark the passing of another useless COP meeting, we need a protest song: Ela Minus with Megapunk, from her 2020 album "Acts of Rebellion".
On the album version, there's no other voices than Ela's own lyrics ("You won't make us stop"), but when she play it live, she mixes in other voice samples, so I'm sharing this version which includes samples from a Greta Thunberg speech.
Amazing how many #ClimateSongs Greta has inspired!
It's not actually Greta, but channels her style almost perfectly. The voice is Marta Wojtas, who does backing vocals and writes all the lyrics for the band.
The song is about our need for heroes, and the internal struggles faced by those in the climate movement that we treat as heroes.
It's perhaps my favourite song in the entire thread so far.
This week's #ClimateRocks is a lovely melodic rock song called "Hero", from the Polish band Amarok. It starts out with what sounds like a fragment from a Greta Thunberg speech:
"Now the eyes of all generations are upon you.
The planet is dying, destroyed, sick of consumerism.
Most people don't even notice it".
Take a listen - it's a gorgeous song...
Interestingly, #Pitbull's songs do not contain environmental messages, he just names his albums that way:
2012: "Global Warming"
2014: "Globalization"
2017: "Climate Change"
In interviews, he says: "If I made a record about [climate change], nobody would listen to it. I make records for people to have a good time, [...] but with the titles, they start to connect the dots like a treasure hunt that I put together for them
The song starts with a very clear message:
"Category 6's are stormin' /
Take this as a, take this as a warning /
Welcome to, welcome to global warming"
And then he proceeds to critique the choice of things rappers sing about, with a (perhaps too subtle) critique of the obsession with glamour and the lifestyles of the rich, with their private jets:
"It's all about them billionaires /
I'm so fucking serious /
Look, I love them zeros, they looking like Cheerios"
For this week's #ClimateRocks, we'll continue our genre tour, with a rap song called "Global Warming" by #Pitbull, from his 2012 album, also called Global Warming.
It's a very short song (1:24), and acts as an introduction to the album. So even if you don't normally dig rap, take a listen...
Of relevance: this article on the symbolism of “Babylon” in reggae. Babylon is taken as a symbol both of the decadent culture of colonial oppressors and a target for pan-African consciousness, as in the term “Beating down Babylon”.
And a biting critique of western democracy as a sham (a “de mockroicy”), in which politicians are scam artists, pretending to be representatives of the people, while really just enriching themselves.
https://academic.oup.com/book/7074/chapter/151571028
#ClimateRocks #ClimateSongs
Interestingly, the song isn’t specifically about climate change (note the spelling of the title), and it name checks wildlife extinction, acid rain, pollution in the water, and deforestation. It elegantly connects the clearing of forests with the need for political resistance:
“Stand up and be counted / Don't ever let them chop us down, hey.”
And it couches the whole message in Rastafarianism:
“Destroying earth was not Jah's plan /
It's the work of man”
It's time for this week's #ClimateRocks. We'll continue our tour of music genres, with a reggae song from Steel Pulse, called "Global Warning".
It's from their 2004 album African Holocaust, which tackles a range of themes around racial oppression, African Nationalism and Rastafarianism.
This song focusses on the link between colonialism and environmental destruction, and the need to stand up for change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCrWjDK4hng
#ClimateSongs
The title is obvious, the lyrics perhaps less so. The singer is channelling the view of the planet itself:
"And when I see the smoke around /
I feel like I'm not from humankind down there /
I feel like glaciers are my eyes /
And mountains are my head, my heart is ocean"
But rather than descending into misanthropy, the song bends towards hope:
"I had this dream, our planet surviving", and ending on the repeated line:
"We will see our children growing".
This week, for #ClimateRocks, we'll continue to explore different music genres. This one might be termed progressive death metal (it certainly has the growling in it).
The song is "Global Warming", by the French band #Gojira, written for their environmentally themed concept album "From Mars to Sirius", in 2005. Fast and furious, once again, a song that channels anger at the state of the planet. Worth a listen, even if you never listen to #DeathMetal.
#ClimateSongs
All these political maneuverings are captured well in the song:
“The media parading /
Disjointed politics /
Founded on petrochemical plunder /
And we're its hostages”
And because this is punk, the song even acknowledges its own futility:
“You might not think it matters now /
But what if you were wrong? /
You might not think there's any wisdom /
In a fucked up punk rock song”
Not to be outdone, Canada - under Conservative prime minister Steven Harper - eventually withdrew from the Kyoto protocol in 2011.
Although at that point, given Canada’s emissions had actually risen by 17% since 1990 rather than falling, the decision to withdraw was largely irrelevant.
Being a huge petro-state, Canada wasn’t going to act on it anyway.
#ClimateRocks #ClimateSongs
A lot of the anger was directed at the US.
While Clinton signed the Kyoto agreement in 1997, he never sent it to the US Senate for ratification, because the senate had already passed a resolution (95-0) saying the US should not sign any agreement unless developing countries were also required to reduce emissions.
After his election, George W Bush made it clear he would never agree to it.
So the US never ratified it.
