![]() Jack Johnson-Horizon Has Been Defeated (2010) Often when we do that, we convert beautiful landscapes to impervious surfaces, which increases polluted runoff, one of the most harmful sources of pollution to the Chesapeake Bay. On this high-energy romper, Eddie Vedder is satirizing the belief that because humans are "the first mammal to wear pants" we can simply bend the land to our will ("All the rolling hills / I'll flatten ‘em out"). ![]() Pearl Jam has no shortage of socially conscious rock anthems. I suspect that Brock knew that when we turn forests and farms into residential and commercial areas without careful planning, we add to the amount of pollution that ends up in our rivers and streams. Like Joni Mitchell, Brock laments the environmental impact of suburban sprawl, in particular the huge expansion of parking lots and highways. In their 2004 massive hit " Float On", Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock sang, "Don't you worry, we'll all float on, alright." But seven years earlier, he was much less laissez faire. He questions whether it was worth it when those early humans ("proud monkeys") "climbed out of these safe limbs" and traded a peaceful life in nature for a life in the city with "car horns, corners and the gritty." Modest Mouse-Convenient Parking (1997) ![]() The better-known " Too Much" was overtly critical of consumerism and unchecked capitalism with straight-forward lyrics like "I eat too much / I drink too much / I want too much."īut on "Proudest Monkey," Matthews is much subtler. Dave Matthews Band-Proudest Monkey (1996)ĭave Matthew's Band 1996 smash album "Crash" featured not one, but two environmental anthems. Using apocalyptic imagery, The Pixies sing about the shrinking ozone ("now there's a hole in the sky and the ground's not cold") and water pollution in the form of "ten million pounds of sludge from New York and New Jersey." Fortunately, since the Pixies released the song, the cities have taken huge strides to limit sewer system discharge thanks to better rules and regulations. The Pixies-Monkey's Gone To Heaven (1989) To prove the point, here are 8 killer rock songs-all released in the last 20 years-that you probably didn't realize were also environmental anthems. But you're simply not listening close enough. To the untrained ear, it may sound as though rock artists' priorities have shift. And the Beach Boys didn't mince words on their 1971 track " Don't Go In The Water" when they sang, in their trademark six-part harmony, "Don't you think it's sad what's happened to the water?" There's no question that the early 1970s was a golden age of conservation choruses (The Kinks' " Apeman" and The Doors' " Ship of Fools" are two personal favs). Just one year later on " Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)," Marvin Gaye silky smooth voice warned of the impact of pollution on birds and fish. Mitchell blazed a trail for other rock artists, and in the months that followed, dozens of popular songs explicitly tackled themes of pollution and environmental destruction. Not only was a tremendous hit in 1970, but it also brought environmental concerns to the popular radio waves. To this day, " Big Yellow Taxi" is Joni Mitchell's most well-known song. That same month, an emerging Canadian singer-songwriter released a simple song about "paving paradise to put up a parking lot." Earth Day, the brainchild of Senator Gaylord Nelson, has been a worldwide celebration of nature and conservation every year since.īut music historians could also argue that April 1970 also marks the birth of the modern environmental rock anthem. (Actually, anything could fool them.) Also appearing on this album is one of Ray’s brother and Kinks lead guitarist Dave Davies’ finest songwriting moments, ‘Strangers,’ which comes in at a very close second to ‘Lola.’ Check out this great cover version of the song by alt-country supergroup Golden Smog.For many political historians, April 1970 marks the beginning of the modern environmental movement in America. You’ve got to hand it to Ray Davies for (a) breaking ground on the queer side of rock and (b) making the tune so listenable that even those Westboro Baptists Church idiots might be fooled into singing along. Lola is a dude that looks like a lady, and s/he gives the song’s narrator a lesson in sexuality. ![]() But it’s also one of the band’s most misunderstood, as it details a homosexual encounter. (Notice a pattern forming here? An amazing album every year? Who does that these days?) The disc's centerpiece, ‘Lola,’ may be one of the Kinks' most widely known tracks, given its regular rotation on classic-rock radio. The follow-up to ‘Arthur,' 1970’s ‘Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One’ is yet another loosely conceptual album. ![]()
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