Tune Req: Earth Day songs

Subject: Earth Day songs
From:
Date: 16 Apr 01 - 11:07 PM

Perhaps some titles suitable for this Sunday. Currently I'm choosing The Ash Grove, Faith of Man and God Bless The Grass. None are exactly environmental, if you know what I mean.

J

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: Peg
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 10:12 AM

There is a song about northern trees; not sure of the title. The chorus goes:

"White pine, silver birch, sing an ancient requiem, giants of our northern lands, we'll never see your like again."

When I was working for Greenpeace this one guy I worked with knew a lot of cool songs like this...another had a chorus that began "And Vermont is afire in the autumn, from the Highlands to Greenboro Bend..."

Maybe a search might yield you the whole songs?

Then there is Sean Tyrrell's "The Orchard."

"The Last Leviathan" is about whales dying of extinction (titled "The Last of the Great Whales" on Solas' latest album).

And the old Rudyard Kipling standard, "Oak and Ash and Thorn"!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: Pinetop Slim
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 10:25 AM

Now is the Cool of the Day
Black Waters
both by Jean Ritchie.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: Charley Noble
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 12:16 PM

What Have They Done to the Rain by Malvina Reynolds
The Roaches Inherit the Earth (I'll post lyrics if you're interested; it's to the tune of "The Eggplant that Ate Cincinatti")

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: GUEST,JohnB
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 12:19 PM

In the same vane as the others you started with is Linden Lea. JohnB

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: Charley Noble
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 12:55 PM

The Roaches Inherit the Earth has just been posted as a separate add.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 12:57 PM

"Pollution" by Tom Lehrer. Hard to think of a song that's more to the point than that one.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: GUEST,willie-o
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 01:06 PM

"Spike a tree for Jesus". Just kiddin. That's a real song though, look up the writer, Darryl Cherney of Earth First! on the Web.

W-O

Subject: Lyr Add: SWEET NIGHTINGALE SING
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 02:52 PM

Here's one I'll throw into "trad." if anyone wants it... I made this a few years back, when someone asked if I'd ever seen or heard a nightingale. Title is, "Sweet Nightingale Sing."

O my dear one, my darling, I will love you for aye,
Till the rocks they do melt and the seas they run dry;
Come let us take pleasure by the clear flowing stream-
Where we'll wander and hear the sweet nightingale sing
Where we'll wander and hear the sweet nightingale sing

I answered my darling with a sigh and a tear-
Till the rocks melt and the seas dry, well that may
come this year...
And the dead river flowing says a sorrowful thing,
That we'll nevermore hear the sweet nightingale sing.
That we'll nevermore hear the sweet nightingale sing.

Jean Ritchie

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 02:58 PM

Sorry- I hit the < going the wrong way > on the second verse. Should be,
Till the rocks melt and the seas dry, well that may
come this year

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: GUEST,Sarah2 (at work)
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 10:49 PM

"Whose Garden was This?" by Tom Paxton.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: Cap't Bob
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 11:03 PM

"The Oyster Song" on the CLEARWATER album.

Cap't Bob

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: GUEST,folky1
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 11:41 PM

Alice De Micele from Oregon has written some great environmental songs including The Beaver Song, a song about the old growth forests written from the point of view of a tree threatened by logging, and Chinook Blues, about the plight of the salmon in the pacific northwest. The Earth Is Our Mother, a traditional Indian song, is also good at Earth Day events. If you have a singing audience, they can echo every second line after you.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: Barry T
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 02:15 AM

Whale Song by Dan Peyton and Marty Kaniger.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: LR Mole
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 10:47 AM

"They Say That the Battle Is Over" by Dave Mallett. I can't recall the last time I've let the anger of a song carry me away from the mourning of it, as I was singing. The guitar reproached me for banging on it so hard.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: Mudlark
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 11:08 AM

How about "The Coming of the Roads"....(look how they've cut all to pieces, our ancient poplars and oaks...) It's on an old Judy Collins album...and Joni Mitchell's "They've Paved Paradise and put up a parking Lot"

Nancy

Subject: Lyr Add: REQUIEM (FOR THE GIANTS)^^^
From: RichM
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 11:19 AM

Peg mentioned a good song --it's in the database, and it's from Eileen McGann's CD 'Turn It Around'

REQUIEM (FOR THE GIANTS) (Eileen McGann)

400 years ago a seed, chance fallen, grew In virgin forest land that never white man knew In woodland silence it rose and flourished By northern wind was shaped, from earth and sky was nourished

White pine, silver birch Sing their names in requiem Giants of our northern land We'll never see your likes again

200 years ago the giants ruled the Shield 'Til white man came and saw the profits they could yield They fell like thunder and left no trace But giant stumps that stand as headstones in their place

In north Ontario some giants still remain Though few in number now the axe-man comes again What will you tell them when your children ask you why Our last remaining forest giants had to die

And what gives them the right I ask To take what's not their own To kill a living beauty that 400 years has grown To take and sell our heritage to fill pockets for a day

And when this crop is gone, what will they say And when this crop is gone and the trees are gone The wild is gone and the beasts are gone And the tourist gone and the money gone What will they say?

White pine... Silver birch... Requiem...

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: RichM
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 11:20 AM

Sorry, I forgot to
the line breaks

Rich McCarthy

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: RichM
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 11:21 AM

...forgot to (do) the line breaks

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 11:35 AM

"Paradise" by John Prine is another good choice.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: Sarah2
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 01:24 PM

Oh, and "God Bless the Grass," another Malvina Rogers song.

Sarah

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 03:48 PM

Do you mean, Malvina Reynolds, Sarah2? And any/all of Malvina's songs qualify (beautifully) as Earth Songs...

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Earth Day songs
From: GUEST,Sarah2
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 07:59 PM

Oops, yes -- sorry, was listening to a Stan Rogers CD and had a thought process short circuit...Thanks, kytrad -- help keep that creeping senility in line!

Sarah