Songs of Protest: The Sounds of a Dying Earth
For centuries, our planet has been crying for help. When will we listen to it?
Music is one of society’s best teachers. In Songs of Protest, writers analyze some of music’s greatest hits, using their findings to make sense of the world around them.
Written by Kriss Conklin
Illustrated by Vildan Karaca
The effects of climate change have become extremely prominent in recent years. From rising sea levels caused by the melting of glaciers and ice sheets, to an increase in extreme weather events and ocean acidification, the planet’s not just warming, it's boiling — at a rate way faster than we can correct. The correlation between human activities and global warming is inextricably linked, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Throughout our planet’s heated history, many artists have taken to song to voice their concerns regarding climate change, especially during the ‘60s and ‘70s, when the modern day environmental movement began. For the past 50 years, climate change has been on the minds of many as the future of the earth becomes uncertain. In a world of confusion and discord, maybe the following anthems of climate change can guide us on a path to save the world in the 21st century.
“Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell
Released on her 1970 album Ladies of the Canyon, Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” has been an essential climate change anthem for decades, paving the way for many artists to combine environmental awareness with music. Mitchell’s straightforward lyrics are a call to action for humans to stop destroying the environment. “They paved paradise, put up a parking lot,” Mitchell sings in the opening verse, referencing the first time she went to Hawaii and saw “a parking lot as far as the eye could see” contrasting the lush green mountains of the island. In an interview with the L.A. Times, Mitchell said “this blight on paradise” broke her heart and inspired her to write “Big Yellow Taxi.” In the chorus, Mitchell laments humans’ tendency to take the beautiful things in life for granted (“Don’t it always seem to go / That you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone?”) The following verse, “They took all the trees, put 'em in a tree museum / And they charged the people a dollar and a half just to see 'em,” sees Mitchell criticize a botanical garden in downtown Honolulu for displacing native Hawaiian trees and ironically charging the public to see nature in a man-made space. In one of the final verses, Mitchell pleads with farmers to stop using pesticides, singing, “Give me spots on my apples / But leave me the birds and the bees, please,” a nod to Rachel Carson’s movement-defining book, “Silent Spring.”
“Big Yellow Taxi” has been covered multiple times since its release 50 years ago, with acts including Bob Dylan, Counting Crows, and Harry Styles putting their own spin on the climate change classic. In 2020, Mitchell’s call to action to stop environmental destruction is more urgent than ever as agricultural pollutants contaminate drinking water, endanger marine life, and pose a threat to human health. Although Mitchell and Carson cautioned against the use of such chemicals in the environment, the United States is the second-highest consumer of pesticides in the world. Pesticides have become an essential part of the farming industry, but most of the chemicals sprayed on crops and soil often end up far from where they were used, as a result of runoff, leeching, or volatilization. Without careful consideration of how these substances are used and disposed of, pesticides will continue to harm all forms of life on this planet.
“Gaia” by Olivia Newton-John
Photo courtesy of Albumism
Olivia Newton-John’s eye-opening predictions of earth’s future landscape make “Gaia” an essential climate change anthem. In this song, Newton-John takes on the character of Mother Earth and warns the listener that humans will cause their own extinction if they do not rethink their destructive actions towards the environment. “Gaia” opens with the soothing sounds of a thriving forest — a reminder of the existence of nature in an unaltered state. In each verse, the singer embodies the earth through different lyrical imagery. First, she introduces herself as the mother of all creation before declaring that her audience has mistreated her (“I gave you shelter / What have you done? / Your heart's in turmoil / My world's in pain”). Later, Newton-John depicts the direct impact of human acts on the environment (“I am the forest, now I'm a tree / The air is dirty, I cannot breathe / My streams run empty, my tears run dry / My children call me, don't let us die”). Finally, Mother Earth reminds her children that she loves them and provides them with shelter, but they will die without changing their ways (“But I'll survive this, if I'm alone / I'm a survivor, but you will be gone / Let's start a new world / From this day on”).
In the chorus, Newton-John pleads with the listener, blind of their own actions, to take better care of the planet.
Respect me, respect me
I need you to protect me
For it is you, not me
Whose fate's in jeopardy
Respect me, respect me
I need you to protect me
For it is you, not me
That's the part you fail to see
“Gaia” spans nearly eight minutes, but every word Newton-John sings fits perfectly with the current state of the world. Unfortunately, not much has been done to prevent the effects of environmental destruction that humans have caused in the past 300 years. The President of the United States does not believe in climate change or the responsibility humans have in the natural phenomenon, when science says otherwise. High carbon emissions are one of the main culprits contributing to the warming of the earth, and currently the U.S. is the only country on the planet that is not operating under the Paris Agreement, “which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to keep temperatures from rising to dangerous levels.” The lyrics of “Gaia” accurately define the course of action the human race needs to take in order to save themselves from extinction; if they don’t, all that will be left is a mother without her children.
“Kyoto Now!” by Bad Religion
Photo courtesy of El Paso Inc.
One of the more aggressive anthems of climate change is Bad Religion’s “Kyoto Now!”, which was released in 2002 on the album The Process of Belief. The song’s title is based on the student-led movement Kyoto NOW!, which aimed to reduce the carbon emissions of American universities in the early 2000s. The organization’s name is a reflection of the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement mandating “that industrialized nations cut their greenhouse gas emissions,” which the United States withdrew from in 2001. Vocalist Greg Gaffin wrote “Kyoto Now!” to stand in support of the Kyoto Protocol and emphasize the repercussions of the U.S. dropping out of the agreement. In the opening lines of “Kyoto Now!” Gaffin describes everyday citizens as “hostages” of a media that parades “disjointed politics / Founded on petrochemical plunder,” referring to the cyclical exploitation of fossil fuels that occurs in modern politics. During the chorus, Gaffin advocates for the U.S. to rejoin the Kyoto Protocol and take action to lower its greenhouse gas emissions (“Kyoto now / We can't do nothing and think someone else will make it right.”)
In the following verse, Gaffin dispels the views of those who say climate change is not a pressing matter, and warns that environmental destruction is nearing the point of no return.
You might not think it matters now
But what if you are wrong?
You might not think there's any wisdom
In a f---ed up punk rock song
But the way it is cannot persist for long
A brutal sun is rising on a sick horizon
“Kyoto Now!” ends with a call to action for the U.S. to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and join forces with other countries to take collective measures against global warming before allowing “The arid torpor of inaction” to “be our demise.” The Kyoto Protocol ended in 2012, a decade after “Kyoto Now!” was released. According to The Guardian, global emissions increased by 7%during the duration of the agreement, with 16 countries failing to stay within their greenhouse gas emission targets. Since then, the UNFCCC has adopted the Paris Agreement, a separate environmental pact that the U.S. has also withdrawn from since its creation in 2015. As of 2017, the U.S. ranks second on the list of the top 20 countries with the highest carbon emissions. Without tougher emissions restrictions, the U.S. will continue to be a catalyst of global warming.
“Monkey Gone to Heaven” by Pixies
The final climate change anthem is “Monkey Gone to Heaven” by Pixies: the perfect, albeit unexpected, track for a mini playlist about a dying planet. This song’s lyrics capture exactly that: a dying planet. In the first verse, vocalist Black Francis alludes to pollution’s dangers to man and the planet itself by singing about “An underwater guy who controlled the sea / Got killed by ten million pounds of sludge / From New York and New Jersey.” In the following verse, Francis illustrates the aftermath of environmental destruction by describing the negative effects of ozone depletion (“The creature in the sky / Got sucked in a hole / Now there's a hole in the sky”) and global warming (“And if the ground's not cold, everything is gonna burn”).
One of the biggest warnings in “Monkey Gone to Heaven” lies in the lyric “We'll all take turns, I'll get mine too,” which is Francis’ way of saying that no one can escape the effects of climate change, and that the entire human race is at fault for the destruction of the planet. The song’s hook, “This monkey’s gone to heaven,” is repeated 16 times in total, giving the five words a significantly gloomy weight in this surrealist work. While the Pixies lead singer says “the phrase ‘monkey’s gone to heaven’ just sounds neat,” and has no specific meaning, the hook could be interpreted as the human race dying out due to their irresponsible actions, and thus “gone to heaven.” The lyrics of “Monkey Gone to Heaven” may have been environmental awareness masquerading as melodic nonsense back in the ‘80s, but the song now holds a deeper and darker meaning behind its dreamlike imagery and abstract sound.
Each of these climate change anthems was written at a different time with a different context, but the words of these artists s were never empty. Their message still stands today: we must act now to reverse the damage we have done to the earth, because our inaction will only wreak more havoc on our future.
The temporary halt of everyday life caused by the coronavirus pandemic revealed just how much of an impact humans have on the planet. Smog levels across the globe have decreased since people started staying home and practicing social distancing, but this temporary improvement is meaningless without substantive, widespread changes like the lowering of carbon emissions and the elimination of fossil fuels.
Climate change is not a fairytale or something that will happen down the line, it is a real concern occurring right now, and it affects everyone, regardless of political ideology. With U.S. states reopening in coming weeks, it is only a matter of time before everyone resumes their lives without concern for how they are damaging the earth. In order to save the planet, we must take collective action to change our ways of careless environmental destruction. It is time to listen to the earth and save her from her demise.