BACKGROUND

In the summer of 2016 I began writing songs celebrating the work of scientists out of an activist’s urge to address a crisis in the foundations of our democracy. Science was and continues to be under attack. Without its evidence based approach to understanding our natural world, we are without a vital means to form objective public policy. 

I had drawn inspiration from the heroic efforts of Pete Seeger, who championed social justice causes with the power of song. That July, I performed at a Pete Seeger memorial event at Joe’s Pub in New York alongside Toshi Reagon, Pete’s goddaughter and daughter of civil rights leader Dr. Bernice Reagon. It was during the performance of “Ella’s Song”, a Bernice Reagon song built around the words of African American icon Ella Baker, that I experienced one of the most profound and rapturous experiences delivered by the power of music in my life. As a white man, to stand onstage in between two black women and sing together the words “until the killing of black mother’s sons is as important as the killing of white mother’s sons” was as vivifying as it was staggering. I felt I had gained a greater awareness of race inequality in that one moment than I had from anything I’d theretofore read or been taught. These lyrics were frank, beautiful and delivered such an activating charge. 

By no measure do I equate the conflict surrounding current science wars with the civil rights struggle or race inequality. But I do identify my experience performing at this concert as the catalyst that led me to think more about the political power of music, and to decide that I myself wanted to immediately become engaged socially in my own songwriting. Up until that point in my career my own song lyrics were decidedly introspective and inaccessible by comparison to those in “Ella’s Song”. For instance, “SOS”, the song that got my former band Earl Greyhound its first notice has the lyric “I’ve got wherewithal to leap from beach to beach, I got the shoes not the fire of a warrior”. Writing that song and others like it, I remember trying to craft words that sounded good together but had little or no decipherable meaning for a listener. Songs of protest, however, be they rooted in the labor, anti-war, civil rights movements or otherwise, are unmistakably direct. 

I set out in the days following that concert to create a collection of songs that were entirely focused on effecting change in the tumult of the modern American era. I gravitated towards the science wars because that’s where I saw an obvious need for an outside-the-box approach, and one in which I had a relatively objective and trustworthy stake given that I had no background in science beyond high school. I saw the intractability of the science debate as an opportunity to apply the transformative power of music where other avenues toward understanding were possibly failing. 

To me, the war on science was one of the most perplexing issues that dominated politics in the summer of 2016. How did we get to a point where science came to represent something so polarizing and so authoritarian to so many people? As I pursued the topic I learned that the problem was far more complex than what I assumed was a recent phenomenon surrounding climate change denial and political rhetoric. I learned that modern distrust of science is not limited to one political party affiliation and that it has roots far back in the atomic age where the power of scientific knowledge was on full display in catastrophic proportions. I also discovered that funding for scientific research is often set up such that scientists are discouraged from engaging in outreach with the general public. 

Music, I thought, could allow for a ground-up approach to rebuilding public trust in science. A lofty goal indeed but a start nonetheless. And though my inspiration for beginning this project was entirely political, my aim and strategy were such that I hoped to help present science in a way that could resonate with anyone regardless of their politics or belief system. In song I was confident I could create a space limited to the celebration of a scientist’s work wherein the lyrical content could be reduced to an expression of my own wonderment at their pursuit of discovery. I felt that the more humanizing and personal a song was, the better chance it stood to help peel away the complexities of controversy for a listener. In the four songs on Sing For Science: Volume 1, I celebrate four different heroes of science who have brought profound progress to our relationship with the natural world. I address Jacques Cousteau’s simultaneous pursuit of ocean conservation and technological innovation with SCUBA in singing “a deeper understanding of a fish comes from becoming amphibious”. In reference to Marie Curie’s decision to not patent her work on radioactivity lest it limit access to cancer patients, I sing from her point of view, “first to find and owner aren’t the same because no cure hiding in dust was I creator of”. My primary hope making this music was that it help open doors of understanding about science that were shut. Once these doors were open, I’d then have the opportunity to use this project as a vehicle to try and improve science literacy among listeners. In the war on science, the most powerful weapon against a well funded disinformation campaign is an informed and discerning public that is familiar and comfortable with science language. 

With this in mind, I knew this collection of songs needed companion lectures about the science behind each scientist to exist in conversation with the music I’d written. That is, each companion lecture on the flip side of the LP would be structured to last the exact duration of the corresponding song. Once I set out to do as much, I had the good fortune to attract lecture contributions from some of the most famous and brilliant living scientists, including noted physicist Sean Carroll and iconic primatologist Jane Goodall. My ask to each lecturer was that the content be engaging, entertaining and positioned above my own level of comprehension. That way I figured the talks stood the best chance of deepening the average listener’s relationship to science given the limits of my own exposure to science. And though the initial reach of this project will mostly include those fans of music already with an interest in science and vice versa, I hope to ultimately create a lasting resource that those unfamiliar with science will discover through the wider reach of the Sing For Science podcast. 

 Throughout the process of writing and recording this music, and developing the Sing For Science podcast I’ve been lead down many different paths that have galvanized my relationship to the subject. The journey has brought me no shortage of surprises, edification or fulfillment. I’ve learned so much not only about the work of the scientists I’ve profiled, but also about how their legacies live on in science activism today.  I met with a metric geometer working to fight gerrymandering by defining the inherent fairness of a voting district’s shape, with the head of an engineer’s union and publisher of a science periodical about the complexity of science advocacy, with 3 female scientist TED fellows committed to diversifying the STEM labor force, with a NY science teacher helping underserved communities gain access to NYC’s specialized public schools, and with several scientists engaged in public outreach working towards substantial science advocacy goals. I’ve gained seemingly limitless inspiration from the work of these contemporary scientists and invaluable input from dozens of friends, colleagues and fellow citizens who share in my excitement for this project. Working on Sing For Science: Volume 1 has brought me ample creative fulfillment in what heretofore has been a self contained act of protest. It’s my sincerest hope that with its release, these songs, lectures and overall concept will inspire as many people as possible to engage socially with science through whatever means they have at their disposal. It’s vitally important that the people of our republic recognize that it’s the individual efforts of many that are crucial to making change. As Pete Seeger said, “There is a 50/50 chance the world can be saved. You - yes you - might be the grain of sand that tips the scales the right way.”