What are some cheese-free songs that mention animals, plants or other aspects of nature?

October 1, 2006 12:37 PM

Help me create a playlist contemporary songs that mention / are about plants or animals (and aren't too sappy).

I teach a first-year class university class on the Natural History of Toronto. I try to start each lecture with a piece of music. I played Sufjan Steven's "The Lord God Bird" recently and it was a big hit. I would love to play more songs that are somehow relevant to the course content.

Soo... I've been searching my musical library for other songs that I could use. Without much luck. So far:

Sarah Harmer's "Escarpment Blues"
Sufjan Steven's "Springfield, or Bobby Got a Shadfly Caught in His Hair"

My criteria for an ideal song:

-mentions some aspect of the natural world (but does not need to be wholly about it)
-is contemporary, perhaps by an artist/artists that my students would recognize
-isn't too sentimental or sappy

Any other suggestions?

posted by gavia to media & arts (53 comments total)

They Might Be Giants "Mammal"
posted by libraryhead at 12:49 PM on October 1, 2006

KT Tunstall - "Black Horse & the Cherry Tree"

And although it's not exactly contemporary, college students would probably enjoy "Atomic Dog" by George Clinton & the Parliament Funkadelic
posted by christinetheslp at 1:01 PM on October 1, 2006

Bloodhound Gang's "The Bad Touch"
posted by tastybrains at 1:04 PM on October 1, 2006

Can you define "about"? I don't know the songs you mentioned--are you saying educationally about an animal/plant?

For instance, the first songs that came to me were The Old Black Hen, Tigress, The Lioness, and The Black Crow, all by Songs: Ohia. They're all just using the animals as metaphors. ("It is that look of the lioness, to her man across the Nile. Wanna feel my heart break, if it must break, in your jaws. Want you to lick my blood off your paws. If you can't get here fast enough, I will swim to you." & "A dead crow calls up to his wings: 'We were lightning across the whole world! We were lightning, lightning, lightning.... I'm getting weaker, I'm getting thin. I hate how obvious I have been. ... I look down and see the whole world, and it's fading, it's fading, it's fading.'" & "Old Black Hen, is that you again, singing The Bad Luck Lullabye? Come right on in, 'cause it's midnight again. Time for the Bad Luck Lullabye."
posted by dobbs at 1:06 PM on October 1, 2006

Ooh! Ooh! "Muskrat Love"!!!


(Please don't use "Muskrat Love.")


Neko Case has a bunch of animal-related songs, including "Maybe Sparrow" and "The Tigers Have Spoken."

There's always the Beatles' "Mother Nature's Son," but that one might not be cheese-free.

I don't know if Dar Williams is someone they might know, but she has "The Ocean" and "Calling The Moon."

Is Paul Simon too dorky? A bunch of the Rhythm of the Saints album might apply.

The Fruit Bats have a good song called "Buffalo and Deer."
posted by librarina at 1:08 PM on October 1, 2006

Gale Blow- The Fiery Furnaces (lots of weather references)
The Cuckoo- HEM
The Dog Song- Nelly McKay
Seven Swans- Sufjan Stevens
posted by kimdog at 1:08 PM on October 1, 2006

Lou Reed - Andy's Chest (from Transformer)
posted by skwm at 1:11 PM on October 1, 2006

John Vanderslice - New Zealand Pines
posted by ludwig_van at 1:14 PM on October 1, 2006

How do you feel about "The Teddy Bear's Picnic"? (Or is that too sappy? It used to be in the jukebox of a tavern I used to go to about 20 years ago, right next to Tower of Power. A very interesting tavern, that one.)
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 1:22 PM on October 1, 2006

Don Dixon - Praying Mantis
posted by gnomeloaf at 1:26 PM on October 1, 2006

Dobbs-

While I hadn't thought of this in terms of a realist vs. metaphor discussion, I guess I'm really looking for songs that deal with natural subjects in a non-metaphorical way.
posted by gavia at 1:29 PM on October 1, 2006

Smog's Let Me See the Colt's might suit as well. It's a terrific track, imo:

Knocked on your door at dawn
with a spark in my heart
dragged you from your bed
and said:
Let me see the colts
that will run next year.
Show them to a gambling man
thinking of the future.
...
We walked out through
the dew-dappled brambles
and sat upon the fence.
Is there anything as still as
sleeping horses?
Is there anything as still as
sleeping horses?
Let me see the colts...

***

And, as I type that, I think of one of my fave Smog songs: I Break Horses:

Well I rode out to the ocean and the water looked like tarnished gold. I rode out on a broken horse who told me she'd never felt so old. And she asked me if I'd feed her and ride her now and then. No no no. No no no. No no no. I break horses. I won't tend to them. I break horses. They seem to come to me asking to be broken. They seem to run to me. I break horses. It doesn't take me long. Just a few well placed words and their wandering hearts are gone. I break--I won't tend to them.

Well at first her warmth felt good between my legs. A living, breathing... a heart beating--flesh. Soon that warmth, it turned to an itch, it turned to a scratch, it turned to a gash! I break, I break horses. I won't tend to them.

Well, tonight I'm swimming to my favorite island and I don't want to see you swimming behind. No, I break horses. I won't tend to them.

***

And The Handsome Family have numerous songs that feature animals. You can hear an unreleased demo of After We Shot the Grizzly on my site.

My fave song by them is probably Passenger Pigeons:

Ever since you moved out
I've been living in the park.
I'd rather talk to the wind
than an empty apartment.
And I wish I could forget
how a billion birds flew in
my hollow, dying heart
the first time I touched
your arm.

Once, there were a billion
passenger pigeons.
So many flew by
they darkened the sky.
But they were clubbed and shot,
netted, gassed, and burned
until there was nothing left
but miles of empty nests.
I can't believe
how easily
a billion birds could disappear.

The park is empty now.
It's so cold out.
And all the paddle boats
are covered up with snow.
Once again it's dark.
The electric lights snap on.
But I'm still sitting here
drinking frozen beer
and throwing potato chips
into the white snow drifts
just in case a bird decides
to fly through here, tonight.
I can't believe
how easily
a billion birds can disappear.

***

Their Lake Geneva also contains my favorite line not about a plant, but a tree:

But which is more important:
to comfort an old woman
or see visions of the heavens
in the stumps of fallen trees?

Albert Einstein trembled when he saw
that time was water
seeping thru the rafters
to put out this burning world.

***

Doh! On preview, looks like I typed all that for nothin'. Ha!
posted by dobbs at 1:30 PM on October 1, 2006

John Vanderslice - New Zealand Pines

If you don't want sappy songs, best to steer clear of the Pines.

Ho dee ho ho.
posted by scallion at 1:33 PM on October 1, 2006

Steven C. Den Beste - yeah, I would say that "The Teddy Bear's Picnic" is a bit too young--Anne Murray had a children's album (There's a hippo in my bathtub) when I was growing up with this song on it. Her version is now looping continuously in my head.
posted by gavia at 1:34 PM on October 1, 2006

Dobbs - While I might not use the songs in class, it doesn't mean that I'm not interested in them :)
posted by gavia at 1:36 PM on October 1, 2006

Bungle in the Jungle - Jethro Tull
The Lion sleeps tonight - The Tokens
Proudest monkey - Dave Matthews Band
posted by crack at 1:41 PM on October 1, 2006

"lucidity" by kinobe (lyrics here)

"springtime" by jonathan richman
posted by catburger at 1:41 PM on October 1, 2006

Dobbs - the Passenger Pigeon song lyrics look perfect, actually.
posted by gavia at 1:42 PM on October 1, 2006

I'll second "Mammal" by TMBG. My favorite part (as a nerdy medical student):

One of us might lose his hair
But you're reminded that it once was there
From the embryonic whale to the monkey with no tail
So the warm blood flows
With the red blood cells lacking nuclei
Through the large four-chambered heart
Maintaining the very high metabolism rate they have
posted by corranhorn at 1:46 PM on October 1, 2006

Laura Veirs - her albums "Carbon Glacier" and "Years of Meteors" reference the natural world extensively. 100% cheese-free folky naturalia!
posted by patricio at 1:49 PM on October 1, 2006

Oops, its a first year university class. Sorry I missed that. I guess my suggestions might be too sappy/cheesy for them.
posted by crack at 1:51 PM on October 1, 2006

Crimson and Clover, Jeremiah was a Bullfrog? (cheesy). There might be some about the ecosystems you're talking about (I don't know Toronto much at all). I'm thinking of Rocky Top, Lakes of Pontchartrain ("if it weren't for the alligators, I'd sleep out in the woods"). There are tons of bluegrass songs about goin' back up to the mountains where the wild roses grow, tons of odes to the ocean, tons of songs about the south (like "Carolina On My Mind," "Georgia"). So maybe you could tell us about main natural features you're covering, too?

Tow others: Indigo Girls' "World Falls" is general love for the beauty of nature. Then there's the Blue Meanies' Pave the World.
posted by salvia at 1:53 PM on October 1, 2006

So I'm teaching an intro ecology class this fall (just started this week) and have been toying with the same idea. I'm a little embarrassed to do it (and most likely will not) but here are some suggestions my peers gave me.

Belly's "Feed the Tree" if you talk about Rainforests Peggy's Lee's take on "Fever" if you talk about global warming Oh, and "Pets" by Porno for Pyros if you have a "What next" kind of discussion.

And on the day where you talk about population growth rates, "Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits" by The Magnetic Fields would not go amiss.

"The New and Improved Bunny Song" by the Veggie Tales when you do Predation.

If you ever do marine stuff, try "I want to be like Jaques Costeau" by Zoe Lewis and another by her called "Let's Go Squidding". Also, Bjork's Oceania is a good one.

If you do a day on heat regulation in animals, I think you have to do "Mammal" by They Might Be Giants (like others have suggested)
posted by special-k at 1:57 PM on October 1, 2006

Grandaddy - The Nature Anthem
posted by evilbeck at 2:00 PM on October 1, 2006

okay, i just went through my music selection and came up with a couple more:

"summer wind" - michael buble
"city bird" - of montreal
posted by catburger at 2:04 PM on October 1, 2006

Megafauna by Star Ghost Dog. Irresistibly catchy pop song with the lyric "Charismatic megafauna gets the attention". No real science in the song, but it will guarantee that your students never forget the phrase "charismatic megafauna".

The Presidents of the United States of America have a bunch of songs that fit the bill: Bug City; Froggy...

Elvis's Hound-dog?
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:05 PM on October 1, 2006

Nothing But Flowers, Talking Heads
Beautiful Day; Heartland, U2
Stars, Switchfoot
posted by The Deej at 2:10 PM on October 1, 2006

If you have cause to mention microbial ecology (or venereal disease!) maybe Boiled in Lead's "The Microorganism".
posted by sculpin at 2:31 PM on October 1, 2006

Also, here are some from current Canadian acts:

The Islands: Swans (Life After Death) might possibly work (link to lyrics only).

Laura Barrett is brand new and has a self-published album called "Earth Sciences", on which I think there are some suitable songs but I can't find a track listing.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:31 PM on October 1, 2006

salvia -

Natural Features? The Great Lakes / Lake Ontario; Oak Ridges Moraine (so any song about a glacier or its remains!); the Eastern deciduous forest (maple & beech trees); the Niagara Escarpment; anything about urban wildlife...
posted by gavia at 2:34 PM on October 1, 2006

Lyle Lovett - "Bears"
Kate Bush - "The Big Sky"
XTC - "Summer's Cauldron"
posted by bibliowench at 2:35 PM on October 1, 2006

Ah, cool. Most of the songs I mentioned or will mention are available cheap on emusic.com.

Some other suggestions:

- Animal Collective's "Who Could Win a Rabbit?"
- Antony and the Johnston's Cripple and the Starfish
- Walking the Cow by numerous people but I like fIREHOSE's version
- Bonnie Prince Billy's One With the Birds
- Bob Wiseman's Blind Horse
- Bruce Cockburn's Wondering Where the Lions Are
- Cat Power's Werewolf
- Los Angeles, I'm Yours by The Decemberists (song about the city)
- The Decemberist's Mariner's Revenge Song takes place inside a whale
- Lazy Butterfly or Queen Bee by Devendra Banhart
- The Fiery Furnace's My Dog Was Lost But Now He's Found
- Guided by Voices' I Am a Tree
- Hayden's Stem
- Herman Dune's Pet Rabbit
- Songs to Wear Pants To's Poopy (song about a rabbit)
- The Inbreds' Noah's Cage
- Iron and Wine's Bird Stealing Bread
- Joel RL Phelps' Give Me Back My Animal
- a dog features prominently in Lambchop's The New Cobweb Summer
- Leonard Cohen's Bird on a Wire
- Lounge Lizards' Yak
- Lyle Lovett's If I had a Boat
- M Ward's cover of Green River
- The Magnetic Fields' Fido Your Leash is Too Long, Roses, and Zebra
- Mercury Rev's Chasing a Bee
- Marvin Pontiac's I'm a Doggy
- Modest Mouse's Doin' the Cockroach
- Nina Nastasia's Bird of Cuzco
- Palace Brothers' Horses
- Parker Paul's Lemongrass
- Paw's Jessee

... Okay, gotta go eat.
posted by dobbs at 2:53 PM on October 1, 2006

The Bees - "Chicken Payback"
posted by afx237vi at 3:00 PM on October 1, 2006

Rockin' Robin is very catchy.
posted by IndigoRain at 3:05 PM on October 1, 2006

gavia, just saw your reply, I'll think about that. In the meantime...

-- Lots by Joanna Newsom, especially if you ever wanted to talk about oceans and especially ocean birds. Check out "Swansea," or "This Side of the Blue:"

...And I do not know my own way to the sea
but the saltiest sea knows its own way to me.

...We all fall down slack-jawed to marvel at words,
While across the sky sheet the impossible birds,
in a steady, illiterate movement homewards.

-- If you're talking bird migration, add Joni Mitchell's "Urge for Going:"

See the geese in chevron flight flapping and racing on before the snow
They've got the urge for going, they've got the wings to go
They get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
Summertime is falling down and winter is closing in

-- Many songs by Iron and Wine. Check out "Cinder and Smoke." My favorite is "On Your Wings:"

How we rise when we’re born
like the ravens in the corn
on their wings, on our knees
crawling careless from the sea.

-- There are a lot of songs that mention coyotes. REM "I Believe" ("I believe in coyotes")

-- Also, in "Dancing on the Ruins of Multinational Corporations," "now the coyotes are running the country!" (It's a fun song but probably not appropriate, more political than I'd play for a class. Oh and that Google video I linked so you could hear it has annoying protest footage.)

-- Still more coyotes, the Indigo Girls "Welcome Me." It's mainly about being being stuck in a city and yearning for wild things:

Welcome me to the city of angels
devil prophets still hold my hand.
I walked your stillborn streets for hours...
I'll be the first to praise the sun,
The first to praise the moon.
The first to hold the lone coyote,
The last to set it free.

-- Also about being frustrated to be in a city, there's the Pixies' "Caribou:"

I live cement
I hate this street
Give dirt to me
I bite lament
This human form
Where I was born
I now repent
Caribou

-- In the humans-are-mammals category, Modest Mouse, "Third Planet:"

A third had just been made and we were swimming in the
Water, didn’t know then was it a son was it a daughter.

When it occurred to me that the animals are swimming
Around in the water in the oceans in our bodies and
Another had been found another ocean on the planet
Given that our blood is just like the atlantic.

-- More humans are animals, rap this time:

Nah, it aint about me
I'm just an average cat
that go to work, freestyle and kick battle raps
And damage any nigga fucking with my habitat
.....
Pause if you feeling that

posted by salvia at 3:09 PM on October 1, 2006

Johnathan Coulton - Bacteria
The Pixies - Palace of the Brine (about Sea Monkeys!)
Ocean Size - Jane's Addiction
Martin Page - In the House of Stone & Light (about the Grand Canyon)
posted by mattholomew at 3:26 PM on October 1, 2006

Gza: Animal Planet

Very creative song.
posted by milarepa at 4:04 PM on October 1, 2006

I don't think you'll find anything more appropriate than Sarah Harmer's Escarpment Blues (yay, I love that song!), but in case you want to include potted/planted plants she also has a song called Oleander (about an oleander).

Most animal/nature songs are metaphors, I think.
posted by easternblot at 4:11 PM on October 1, 2006

The Mountain Goats - Magpie
The Silver Jews - Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed
Sonic Youth - Rats
Frank Black - Song of the Shrimp (Elvis!)
Andrew Bird - A Nervous Tic Motion Of The Head To The Left
Fruit Bats - Buffalo & Deer
posted by Hildago at 4:12 PM on October 1, 2006

They're not contemporary or indie, but these science songs from the 50s and 60s are awesome. Scroll down the page to "Nature Songs", and you'll see a bunch of songs about flora and fauna from the series that gave They Might Be Giants their song about the Sun. (Er, they are cheesy, but they're so cheesy they come right the way round to coolness. In my opinion. But I'm odd like that.)
posted by hot soup girl at 4:13 PM on October 1, 2006

Sparklehorse - More Yellow Birds
Smog - Let me see the Colts (extremely pretty song)
Sonic Youth - Tulip Fire
Don Caballero - Stupid Puma
Parliment - Atomic Dog
Cypress Hill - I love you Mary Jane two plants for the price of one, there
Paul Weller - Sunflower
Rolling stones - Dandelion
Andre 3000 - Roses
The Shins - Know your Onion!
posted by DenOfSizer at 4:53 PM on October 1, 2006

Modest Mouse's Neverending Math Equation (I like Sun Kil Moon's version from Tiny Cities) -- "the plants and the animals, they are linked, the plants and the animals eat each other."
posted by Felicity Rilke at 4:55 PM on October 1, 2006

The Fauves - "Dogs Are The Best People"
Rolf Harris - "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" ;)
posted by Jimbob at 5:31 PM on October 1, 2006

Young Lions - Adrian Belew
Dog & Butterfly - Heart
It Must Have Been the Roses - Grateful Dead
Scarlet Begonias - Grateful Dead
China Cat Sunflower - Grateful Dead
Shock the Monkey - Peter Gabriel
Monkey Man - Rollingstiones
Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead
Tigers Not Daughters - controller.controller
Three Little Birds - Bob Marley
Excellent Birds - Peter Gabriel and/or Laurie Anderson
Fox Confessor Brings The Flood - Neko Case
Scaling The Whales - Robert Fripp
posted by doctor_negative at 5:35 PM on October 1, 2006

My friend's band Awesome New Republic has a song called "Watering Hole". It, and three remixes of it, are available for free at awesomenewrepublic.com. It's mostly about relating human love to nature, sans irony.
posted by 7878ponce at 5:55 PM on October 1, 2006

No one's mentioned "Blackbird" by the Beatles yet? Man do I feel old.
posted by any major dude at 6:02 PM on October 1, 2006

Relient K - High of 75
posted by jxpx777 at 6:43 PM on October 1, 2006

Don't make me say. *sigh, all right* Freebird. There, you happy.
posted by SPrintF at 8:07 PM on October 1, 2006

Previously, songs about insects.
Devendra Barnhart's already been suggested, but he's got a ton of songs about plants and animals.

Redwood Tree - Van Morrison
Whispering Pines - Kelly Hogan & The Pine Valley Cosmonauts
(Nothing But) Flowers - The Talking Heads

Stevie Wonder made an entire album about plants.
posted by hydrophonic at 9:30 PM on October 1, 2006

Sufjan Stevens - The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades
Survivor - The Eye of the Tiger
The Magnetic Fields - 100,000 Fireflies
Peter Gabriel - Red Rain
Katrina and the Waves - Walking on Sunshine
Len - Steal my Sunshine
Nelly Furtado - I'm Like A Bird
Morris Day - The Bird
Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf

But it doesn't get more natural and ecological than Marvin Gaye's "Mercy Mercy Me"
posted by kookoobirdz at 11:10 PM on October 1, 2006

America, A Horse with No Name

(I keed!)
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 5:25 AM on October 2, 2006

I know someone mentioned Bungle in the Jungle-- it reminded me that Jethro Tull did a whole album based on an animal theme: Heavy Horses

One Brown Mouse and Heavy Horses in particular are both excellent songs and speak literally of animals.
posted by Adelwolf at 1:58 PM on October 2, 2006

Best for last...The Wind by Cat Stevens. Always make me feel like going outside.
posted by any major dude at 4:09 PM on October 2, 2006