The Last Word On Nothing

Science or music, music or science? Too often when it comes to science-inflected tunage, that’s the choice one has to make.

The best songs, usually, are only tangentially about science. The Low Anthem’s “Charlie Darwin,” for example, is stirringly beautiful, and improves with each listen well into the hundreds. But poor old Darwin doesn’t ever rise above the level of metaphor — and there’s certainly no mention of his long decade spent immersed in the painstaking study of barnacle systematics.

At the other end of the spectrum, any number of recent lab-based music videos — the “Large Hadron Rap,”  “Bad Project”  — have been full of fun and verifiable science content. But oh dilly, are they nerdy. And musically, they don’t rise above the level of novelty acts.

That’s what makes Nimbleweed so darned special. After the jump: quite possibly the best science songs you’ve ever heard.

The gold standard for high-quality science music rests, surely, with They Might Be Giants. From “Science is Real” and “Meet the Elements” to “The Ballad Of Davy Crockett (In Outer Space),” their album Here Comes Science is clever and catchy. Ostensibly for kids, it makes fine listening for adults, too. But TMBG are musical magicians, not musical scientists. When Nimbleweed sings about science, they do it with some hard time in the lab and the science lecture hall under their collective belt. You can hear the bench work in the rhythm, just like you can hear the cotton fields in the blues.

Go ahead and click already — the song is called “The Idealized Science Ditty,” and if you listen I won’t have to try to describe Nimbleweed’s music. Other than to say that it’s all more-or-less folk-ish, and that this is a solo, demo recording of the song — the full-band arrangements are surprisingly rich and diverse. (The band members credit the fact that they each believe themselves to be playing a different genre than the others.) The two selections I’ve picked out here are both written by Max McClure. Like all the members, he’s a recent graduate of Stanford — biology, in his case. And like a couple of them, he sat through my classes there. Max and his banjo are pretty sure they’re playing bluegrass, no matter what the others are up to.

Each spring, I pack my environmental journalism course with a mix of journalism and science students. And, in the hope that the next generation of scientists and journalists won’t misunderstand one another quite as tragically as their forebears do, I make them work together across those disciplinary divides. Max’s “The Idealized Science Ditty” was written as part of the scientists’ introduction of themselves to the journalists. And I defy you to claim it doesn’t kick ass.

Nimbleweed recently released Nimbleweed Sings Science! — an 8-song album of sci-tech themed songs, treating everything from oceanographic voyages on the Sea of Cortez to the special allure, environmental and otherwise, of the all-electric Tesla Roadster. I could gush about it for pages, but lucky for us all I don’t have to: you can get a taste of the music right here, and then scurry off to CD Baby to get the whole lot. Lyrics for “The Idealized Science Ditty” follow–and after that I’ve tacked on an excerpt from what might just be the best science content song of all time. You’ll have to buy the full version to decide for yourself!

 

The Idealized Science Ditty

There are two primary types of scientist

The one’s an awkward genius with a giant Jewfro

And the other’s an expert in her field at 29

But still quite nubile, so gets ravished by a spy.

I want you to know that’s how it really is,

In any laboratory, walking down a hallway

Miracles are happening in every room you pass

Remember, keep your white lab coat on always

Don’t meet the Nobel committee looking like a total pity.

Run a test, we are more objective than the rest

We are scientists and we’ll do nothing lesser than our best

And success just means to guess at how the data points regress

Is the future what we said it would be? Of course the answer’s yes.

Is the future what we said it would be? ‘Course the answer’s yes.

I will stand upon the shoulders of the giants

Who believe in rational hypothesizing

Models fit the data not the other way around

If trees fall in the forest, the will make a sound.

I want you to know that ev’ry half an hour

I shriek eureka! at the newest cure that I have found

And if a rival should disprove me

I will kindly take the criticism that they give me

‘Cause my chosen discipline has never been a competition.

Run a test, we’re more objective than the rest

We are scientists and if you have assumed you have transgressed

But I confess that I digress, let us say nevertheless,

Is the future what we said it would be? Of course the answer’s yes.

Is the future what we said it would be? Of course the answer’s yes.

Is the future what we said it would be? ‘Course the answer’s yes.

The Neural Control of Micturition (excerpt)

Seven cups of coffee before I get on the bus

It won’t take long before I start to fight and fuss

I wish I’d known not to mix some diuretics

And the public transit system.

Now I start to wonder what it is

That makes me able to refrain

From urination when it’s socially unacceptable

I suspect my central nervous system plays a role.

…

It seems the facts I’ve gleaned

About muscles that relax in me

Allow my private acts to be

Twixt me and my commode.

 As They Might Be Giants would no doubt point out, science doesn’t get any realer than that. Now be a sport and go buy some Nimbleweed songs–”Sings Science!” is available at a dollar a song, or in one big bite for just 6 bucks at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/nimbleweed.

 

Media Top image: Still from the video for Nimbleweed’s cover of Cold Play’s “Fix You” (warning–no science content), produced by band member and YouTube virologist Adam Cole (Cadamole). “The Idealized Science Ditty.” Written and performed by Max McClure, under duress and for credit in Comm 177c – Environmental Journalism. This is a solo demo version–the album version features the full band. “The Neural Control of Micturition” (excerpt). Written by Max McClure, performed by Nimbleweed.