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mustangchef

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Favorite songs about Nature
« on: July 23, 2017, 03:46:54 PM »
sometimes

pileus

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #1 on: July 23, 2017, 04:39:36 PM »


Two artists in particular hold my favor:  Gordon Lightfoot and John Denver.

Lightfoot evokes nature with beautiful lyrics but also interweaves the intrusion of modern society, industry, commerce, etc., and the pull of human emotions.  He does a nice job of mixing all these elements.  His early work from the late 60s/early 70s is especially fantastic.  A few good examples: "Ode to Big Blue" (really special), "Canadian Railroad Trilogy", "The Way I Feel".  A lot of Americans of course know Lightfoot for "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", a sober warning about being caught helpless in the wrath of nature.

One of my favorite things to do on a rainy Sunday morning or cold winter day is to go through Lightfoot's albums and relax and reflect.

Link for "Ode to Big Blue":   

John Denver of course focused much of his work on nature and the environment.  I feel grateful to have seen him live before his untimely passing.  It was an outdoor concert in a natural and hilly setting amongst trees on a hot summer night, very special memory.

Link to "The Eagle and the Hawk": 
« Last Edit: July 23, 2017, 04:49:38 PM by pileus »

Bruce Steele

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2017, 05:47:32 PM »


And this, an ethereal onetime dream , can't quite acquiesce yet

« Last Edit: July 23, 2017, 06:17:47 PM by Bruce Steele »

mustangchef

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #3 on: July 23, 2017, 07:50:56 PM »


Two artists in particular hold my favor:  Gordon Lightfoot and John Denver.

Lightfoot evokes nature with beautiful lyrics but also interweaves the intrusion of modern society, industry, commerce, etc., and the pull of human emotions.  He does a nice job of mixing all these elements.  His early work from the late 60s/early 70s is especially fantastic.  A few good examples: "Ode to Big Blue" (really special), "Canadian Railroad Trilogy", "The Way I Feel".  A lot of Americans of course know Lightfoot for "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", a sober warning about being caught helpless in the wrath of nature.

One of my favorite things to do on a rainy Sunday morning or cold winter day is to go through Lightfoot's albums and relax and reflect.

Link for "Ode to Big Blue":   

John Denver of course focused much of his work on nature and the environment.  I feel grateful to have seen him live before his untimely passing.  It was an outdoor concert in a natural and hilly setting amongst trees on a hot summer night, very special memory.

Link to "The Eagle and the Hawk": 
+1 on the Edmund
sometimes

crandles

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #4 on: July 23, 2017, 08:44:55 PM »
Both: January brings the snow,
Makes your feet and fingers glow.

February's ice and sleet,
Freeze the toes right off your feet.
Welcome, March, with wint'ry wind,
Would thou weren't not so unkind.

April brings the sweet spring showers,
On and on for hours and hours.

Farmers fear unkindly May,
Frost by night and hail by day.

June just rains and never stops,
Thirty days and spoils the crops.

 
In July the sun is hot,
Flanders: Is it shining?
Swann: No it's not!

Both: August, cold and dank and wet,
Brings more rain than any yet.

Bleak September's mist and mud,
Is enough to chill the blood.
Then October adds a gale,
Wind and slush and rain and hail.

Dark November brings the fog,
Should not do it to a dog.

Freezing wet December, then...
Both: b***** January again!

Both: (January brings the snow),
(Makes your feet and fingers glow!)

 ;) ;D

https://www.flashlyrics.com/lyrics/flanders-and-swann/a-song-of-the-weather-76

Neven

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #5 on: July 23, 2017, 10:38:07 PM »
Not really about Nature, but there are some references to environmental destruction and its causes (click the 'no longer available' if no YouTube window is showing):

Jeff Buckley - The Sky is a Landfill

! No longer available
The enemy is within
Don't confuse me with him

E. Smith

Neven

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #6 on: July 23, 2017, 10:42:34 PM »
Here's a Talking Heads song that somehow I feel has to do with the ozone hole:

Talking Heads - Air

! No longer available
The enemy is within
Don't confuse me with him

E. Smith

Neven

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #7 on: July 23, 2017, 10:46:00 PM »
And here's one from another Boston band that was heavily influenced by Talking Heads and then went on to basically influence everybody back in the 90s. The song isn't really about Nature either, but there are a couple of lines that are 100% about melting permafrost:

And the ground's not cold
And when the ground's not cold
Everything is gonna burn
We'll all take turns
I'll get mine too

 ;)

Pixies - Monkey Gone to Heaven

! No longer available
The enemy is within
Don't confuse me with him

E. Smith

Tigertown

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #8 on: July 23, 2017, 10:48:55 PM »
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

Tor Bejnar

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #9 on: July 23, 2017, 11:12:04 PM »
I grew up with Tom Lehrer and Swann & Flanders (actually was introduced to Donald Swann at a Quaker meeting in South Africa in 1979 or '82 [I was there twice]!).  Therefore:
The Wild West Is Where I Want to Be [where I grew up - under the potential shadow of a potential accident at Los Alamos]
The Hunting Song  [grew up doing a tame version of this]
Poisoning Pigeons in the Park  [did not do this]
We Will All Go Together When We Go  [not yet, anyway]

The Hippopotamus Song (Mud Glorious Mud)
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

wili

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #10 on: July 24, 2017, 06:30:50 AM »
O Caritas! Cat Stevens.  In Latin and in English!


hunc ornatum mundi
nolo perdere
video flagrare, video flagrare
video flagrare, omnia res
audio clamare, audio clamare
audio clamare, homines
nunc extinguitur
mund(i) et astrorum lamen
nunc concipitur
mali hominis crimen
tristetat(e) et lacrimis
gravis est dolor
de terraeque maribus
magnus est clamor
O caritas, O caritas
nobis semper sit amor
mos perituri mortem salutamus -- ah, ah
sola resurgit vita

Ah, this world is burning fast
Oh, the world will never last
I don't want to lose, I don't want to lose it
I don't want to lose it here in my time
Give me time forever, give me time forever
Give me time forever here in my time
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Tigertown

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #11 on: July 29, 2017, 06:25:27 AM »
Subtle references to nature; Bright blue sky and so forth.



« Last Edit: July 29, 2017, 06:30:50 AM by Tigertown »
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

Tigertown

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #12 on: July 29, 2017, 06:32:52 AM »
Grass is green and the girls are pretty.



"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

Tor Bejnar

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #13 on: July 29, 2017, 02:44:31 PM »
Peter Seeger's One Blue Sky


One blue sky above us, one ocean lapping all our shore
One earth so green and round, who could ask for more?
And because I love you I'll give it one more try
To show my rainbow race, it's too soon to die

Some folks want to be like an ostrich
Bury their heads in the sand
Some hope that plastic dreams
Can unclench all those greedy hands

Some hope to take the easy way
Poisons, bombs, they think we need 'em
Don't you know you can't kill all the unbelievers?
There's no shortcut to freedom

One blue sky above us, one ocean lapping all our shore
One earth so green and round, who could ask for more?
And because I love you I'll give it one more try
To show my rainbow race, it's too soon to die

Go tell, go tell all the little children
Tell all the mothers and fathers too
Now's our last chance to learn to share
What's been given to me and you

One blue sky above us, one ocean lapping all our shore
One earth so green and round, who could ask for more?
And because I love you I'll give it one more try
To show my rainbow race, it's too soon to die

One blue sky above us, one ocean lapping all our shore
One earth so green and round, who could ask for more?

    Writer(s): Peter Seeger
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gerontocrat

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #14 on: July 29, 2017, 03:21:40 PM »
For me, it has to be Joni Mitchell's "Big yellow Taxi". A good reminder that the environment movement started with what we are doing to the natural world in general. Rachel Carson and all that.

"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

logicmanPatrick

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #15 on: July 29, 2017, 05:13:16 PM »
re Flanders and Swan

Misalliance

The fragrant honeysuckle spirals clockwise to the sun,
And many other creepers do the same.
But some climb anti-clockwise, the bindweed does, for one,
Or Convolvulus, to give her proper name.
...


re Cat Stevens

Morning has broken

Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass


re  Latin

Carmina Burana

Veris leta facies                       (The true face of spring)

Veris leta facies                    The true face of spring
mundo propinatur,                     is revealed to the world,
hiemalis acies                                 embattled winter,
victa iam fugatur,                    vanquished, now flees,
in vestitu vario                         in vari-coloured vestments
Flora principatur,                           Flora reigns,
nemorum dulcisono                       the sweet forests
que cantu celebratur.                  praise her in song.

(my translation for what it's worth and which may well be in error because I don't speak Latin do you see to say nothing of my punctuation skills and my tendency to stretch out jokes way too far need I say more?)
si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes

mustangchef

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #16 on: July 29, 2017, 09:28:46 PM »
For me, it has to be Joni Mitchell's "Big yellow Taxi". A good reminder that the environment movement started with what we are doing to the natural world in general. Rachel Carson and all that.

Oh ya , that is a good one.
sometimes

Reallybigbunny

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #17 on: July 31, 2017, 02:51:53 AM »
Always loved this piece. It belongs here.

Bering Strait - Bearing Straight




Reallybigbunny

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #18 on: July 31, 2017, 03:05:11 AM »
John Hanlon - Damn The Dam

An old favourite - the cost of hydro electric power


Reallybigbunny

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #19 on: July 31, 2017, 03:16:19 AM »
Showing my age, here's Nature by Fourmyula, another New Zealand classic


logicmanPatrick

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #20 on: August 05, 2017, 06:38:33 PM »




   ;D
si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes

Tor Bejnar

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #21 on: August 05, 2017, 11:19:37 PM »
I had only ever heard rude parodies of "In An English Country Garden".  Thanks (although he suggests "insects" include spiders and reptiles)  The parodies are more fun: I've enjoyed this .  (Lyrics start at 1:15)
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mustangchef

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #22 on: August 25, 2017, 03:23:11 AM »
sometimes

logicmanPatrick

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #23 on: August 26, 2017, 05:10:22 AM »


That's what I call migraine music.  Those strobes can trigger epilepsy or migraine.

I much prefer the Neil Young version.


In complete contrast:
.  Worth watching for the time lapse images.  Cool!
si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes

Reallybigbunny

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Re: Favorite songs about Nature
« Reply #24 on: September 02, 2017, 02:05:14 PM »
Here's another favorite from way back by Nick Drake - Hazy Jane II