Nature-inspired music? (not environment-related)

Nature Talk
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Just two examples:

  • the genius composition “Flight of the Bumblebee” by Rimsky-Korsakov.
  • the instrumental “Baluchiterium” by Van Halen (now synonymized with Paraceratherium)

NB: not environment-themed music, nor music/songs that have a reference to nature just in their title.

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Great question, making me think…you mean, cutting the human experience out, ie not any of the hundreds of songs and music expressing one’s feelings about, or in response to, nature?

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Nature but not environment is a little confusing to me. So only pieces mentioning organisms? Like not Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, but rather pieces such as Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf.

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Vargsången is a Swedish (I think?) Lullaby about a wolf, this song was featured in the show Ronja the Robber’s Daughter

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Ravel and Debussy did many nature themes and they really do sound like their names. Amazing piano songs too.

Ravel’s Noctuelles (night moths)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_P44-Q_FXVY&feature=sharec

Ravel’ oiseaux tristes (sad birds)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AL0qCOK573Y&feature=sharec

Debussy’s Poissons D’or (goldfish)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bPLE5xfkFuM&feature=sharec

There are probably several more but you get the idea. I love listening to my brother play some of these songs though they are incredibly difficult so he can’t play the who thing.

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Eric The Half A Bee

The more adventurous might also wish to google some folk metal, for another example.

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Die Fledermaus

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I think that everything from bands like Wardruna, Heilung, or polish band Ols sounds like a wintery night under snowy mountains.

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Lots of ideas in this thread
If organisms had theme songs - Nature Talk - iNaturalist Community Forum
I wonder if the present thread will go in a different direction.

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I am a mole and I live in a hole.
The ugly duckling.
There was an old lady who swallowed a fly.

Arthur Askey recorded a series of invertebrate-themed novelty songs, but this golden age of British popular music came to an end with the arrival of a four-piece Liverpool band in the early 1960s. Despite a promising name, they did little to promote public appreciation of Coleoptera and promulgated an unfortunate mis-spelling. Their four contributions to the genre involved a blackbird, a walrus, a raccoon and cephalopod habitat, but all four songs are mainly remembered for their lack of natural history content.

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I think Camille Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of Animals is a great fit, the Donkey track is pretty accurate!

I’m a bit unclear about what exactly enironmental-themed songs are, can you clarify? Is it excluding:

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You got to it before I did. I especially like Le Cygne, which translate to “the swan.”

Another good piece is Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. A lot of classical pieces are about swans for some reason.

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Sufjan Stevens’ “Lord God Bird” references the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Although it may violate your “not environment-related” criterion, because it mentions “the sewing machine,” alluding to the Singer Tract, where the last known population of Ivory-bills lived.

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This is probably missing the mark significantly but Muskrat Love by Willis Alan Ramsey (or America, that version is more well-known) is about (semi-anthropomorphic) muskrats. It’s mainly just a love song but much of the diction is somewhat accurate to what you’d think of muskrats. Not so much “do the jitterbug out in muskrat land” but “nibblin’ on bacon, chewin’ on cheese” and “muzzle to muzzle” at least paints a clear picture of actual muskrats. Probably not a realistic one, but I’d like to think Willis was trying his best.

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This piece from CBC Radio’s science show, Quirks and Quarks may be of interest:
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1863799875628

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My first thought was Megadeth’s Countdown to Extinction (song condemning canned hunts) though maybe that’s more animal welfare than strictly environmental?

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I was just curious to know about music inspired by certain organisms or by some natural phenomena and not related to environmentalism.

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Is this appropriate? It’s a song symphonically describing the undulations of massive waves on the ocean—a natural phenomenon. A wonderful piano song, truly one of my favorites.

Ravel’s un barque sur l’océan (Boat on the ocean)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i2y6MXI-UpI&feature=sharec

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Stornoway released an album called Bonxie which is the Scottish name for the Great Skua. In the promo stages they asked people to pledge money to fund the album and were rewarded with a day’s birdwatching with the band. Lots of bird content and beachcombing in the music too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTN1L-eyUAk&list=OLAK5uy_mU8jdOBn2qheeq8dPkaCp8p9Aq99l8SV8&index=2

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Ah. In that case, They Might Be Giants has a few good ones. “Mammal” is one of them.