July 2020 BBC Wildlife 49
and what we think about them,
particularly birds like ravens,
with the mythology and folklore
surrounding them.”
Particular species embody notable
traits to play with – cuckoos migrate,they
usurp, they murder. Not that all musicians
drill down that far. Clearly, Prince hadn’t
considered whether doves actually cry. And
Paul McCartney was less worried about
injured songbirds than the struggles of
African-Americans when he crooned about
a blackbird with a broken wing.D
o we really need this kind of
music? Well, both anecdotal
and scientific evidence suggest
the answer is yes. The medical
and psychological imperative to
renew our connection with nature has been
well studied in recent years, and music can
surely be an ingredient in the remedy.
Older traditional folk music, written
when the majority of the British population
lived in country settlements, spoke of
common shared experiences – singer
and audience alike would be attuned
to changing seasons, anticipating the
blooming of flowers and trees, the arrival
and behaviour of birds. Today, songwriters- many themselves city-based – evoke
experiences lost or unfamiliar to most
audiences among our overwhelmingly
urban population. Listeners may be
nostalgic, in search of the exotic, or merely
stressed and in need of a vicarious nature
cure – like the songwriters.
environmentalmessages.
Howeverheartfeltthe song,
they can be interpreted as overly
political, pompous or po-faced. But
weaving stories about conservation issues
into songs can be effective. In her magical
Seabird, from The Wren and the Salt Air EP
about St Kilda, Jenny Sturgeon sings:
Shifting, soaring on the wing
Mismatch in a sea of change
The silver fish peaks
Out of sync with begging beaks
And the journey goes on and on.It’s a nod to the collapse in sandeel
numbers that has hit such species as
puffins and kittiwakes – but it’s also a
sparsely beautiful, evocative panegyric to
this Scottish archipelago. “I’ve always been
keen to celebrate nature and the natural
world, rather than preach about it,” says
Jenny, “because, in general, there’s an
automatic reaction to that – people step
back. With my music, people can interpret
it how they want. And obviously, if they
really listen to the lyrics – like that part
aboutthesilverfish– they'llgraspwhat
I’msingingabout.”
Similarly,Kitty
Macfarlane’ssongGlass
eel, writtenaftershe
participatedina citizen-
scienceprojecton
Somerset’s River Parrett, spotlights the
plight of Critically Endangered Anguilla
anguilla, while also musing on themes
of migration and fragmentation.
We’re filled with song from birth. It’s
how we communicate, before speech –
researchers suggest that babies’ cooing
and babbling reflects innate musicality.
Perhaps that’s why avian themes recur
so frequently in music, reflecting an
odd kinship. Birds sing – we sing.
Birds trill to claim territory – how very
human – and to lure mates. But there’s
a rich seam of metaphor to mine,
too – birds symbolise freedom, power,
peace, transformation, the changing
of seasons and passing of time. “Hope
is the thing with feathers,” wrote poet
Emily Dickinson – so is grief, according
to author Max Porter.
“People have always had
a connection with birds,”
mulls Jenny – herself a former
seabird ecologist. “We look at
them, and admire them, and envy
them:‘I wish I could fly!’ There’s an
anthropomorphic view, too – we apply
humancharacteristics to particular
species, reflecting how we view themLeft to right: Marvin
Gaye, Radiohead’s
Thom Yorke,
Pete Seeger, Joni
Mitchell and Ralph
Vaughn Williamsspan a variety of
genres but the
environment and
natural world has
inspired them all in
one way or another.