Season 1, Episode 14: Climate Music Pt. 1: Panu’s Playlist
image credit | FPVmat A
Season 1, Episode 14: Climate Music Pt. 1 Panu's Music
It has been said: “Where words leave off, music begins.” The climate emergency challenges us to find words for so many feelings: Loneliness and connection, pain and loss, endurance, dedication, creativity and joy. In this two-episode series, Panu and Thomas share personal music playlists based on a simple assignment: “Music and climate emotions.” Thomas and Panu discuss the important role music plays in their coping and wellbeing, and examples of climate change-focused musical endeavors. Panu begins with a selection of 15 tracks from a variety of artists. He notes “this playlist is an emotional journey. The atmospheres … are more important than the lyrics, but some tracks have also been selected because of their lyrics. The playlist does follow roughly a process of crisis. There are fluctuations of sorrow and anger, but also of hope and beauty—as in our lives amidst the ecological crisis.” Music is a universal emotional language. Listen along and let us know about the music that inspires you to express your climate feelings.
Links
Music Declares Emergency, United Kingdom
Storm Warning, Finland
KEXP, Seattle, Washington, USA
A music video of Moby’s “Why does my heart feel so bad” (2021 version) directed & animated by Steve Cutts
The Weather Station’s Tamara Lindeman on climate grief
Bearing witness to some recent Spotify controversies
Transcript
Transcript edited for clarity and brevity.
[music: “CC&H theme music”]
Introduction voice: Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness, an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala.
Thomas Doherty: Well hello. I'm Thomas Doherty.
Panu Pihkala: And I'm Panu Pihkala.
Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. Our podcast. A show for people around the globe who are thinking deeply about the personal side of climate change. Particularly their emotional responses and their feelings. And today this is a special episode. I have looked forward to. Panu and I are both musicophiles, music lovers of various genres. And today we're working on some episodes that capture some music that we love that also channels some of our feelings and impressions about global climate change. And so we're going to get into this a little bit. Panu, I know we've chatted at length about music and what it means to us. But tell me some thoughts you have about this climate change and music idea.
Pihkala: Yeah. Greetings everyone. And very glad to be talking about music. That's a very important aspect of life for me. And in many ways: the written stuff, the melodies... They are also related to the daily flow of life. But in practice, listening to various kinds of music during the day is something I do. I also play a couple of instruments. Not in any professional manner, but that's also great for emotional release, actually. That wasn't the original reason I had when I started playing them, but later on I found that that's very important also in that regard. But how about you, Thomas? What's the role of music in your life?
Doherty: Ah, similar to yourself, Panu. I have just always been—music has always been a close companion to me. You know, when I talk to people about emotional expression and using a feelings list. You know, describing how you're feeling and also how you might want to feel and the feelings you might want to cultivate, I think music is like that for me. It reflects back to me how I am feeling. Like the poetry and the tones and the rhythm and the melody can express things that I can't personally express. Puts into words and sounds what I'm feeling. But also like things that I reach towards. Things that boost me. And ways of being that I want to inhabit in my life. So music is both of those things for me. And it's just a part of my life. Yeah.
And only recently in the last several years, I've taken up drumming. So I do some drumming on a vintage drum kit that's a little older than I am. And so it's fun. That was a rebirth of music in a whole other way for me: to be more of a musician myself. And I want to name - we've got a lot of things going on outside in the world: The day that we're recording we have violence in the Ukraine. And we have IPCC reports coming out. Supreme Court deliberations on momentous laws. So there's a lot going on in the world. And I think this music helps us to … channel our various impressions and things like that. Anything particular before we get started? Some orientation for our listeners about music in Finland? Or about this playlist that you're going to describe? Your playlist: how did that come together?
Pihkala: Yes. We came up with the idea of each of us doing a playlist about the theme of the podcast. And mine is focused on climate emotions. Different kinds of them. And since I am coming from Finland and we have a lively music scene in Finland—actually so lively that we've been able to export some of our musicians to the states, for example, at least on temporary loans—I wanted to include, also, some Finnish songs into my playlist. I'm fully aware that not too many people internationally have learned the Finnish language, but there's the melody and the writing. There's also a plan for me to write a bit about this playlist and I'll explain something about the lyrics and the selection as we will also be doing live now.
Doherty: Yeah. And I want to just shout out. There's obviously music as an expressive art. But we know there's musicians that are active in climate work and, of our listeners, there're musicians active in all kinds of things. I know there’s the Music Declares Emergency group in the UK that I've followed. That is really trying to work on sustainability in the music business. And I know there's the Storm Warning group in Finland that you've described. The musicians working for the climate. So I just want to shout out to those folks. And there's stations like KEXP in Seattle here near where I live in the United States that are very active in supporting the community and supporting people as we go through our challenges in the modern world. So there's a lot of levels to this. But we're really on the expressive side. And not the obvious expressive side. None of these are necessarily obviously about climate change directly, but they evoke certain things and that's the angle here. So yeah. Panu, why don't you launch into talking about your climate emotions playlist. And we'll see what it sounds and looks like.
Pihkala: Definitely, Thomas. And for now we are using Spotify as a platform. We'll also share these playlists so that you can listen to them. And life has these strong ambiguities and ambivalences, which are sort of standard also in relation to the climate crisis. And also in relation to musical platforms such as Spotify. There's the controversy around different ethical issues and we're aware of that [e.g., podcasts spreading disinformation, artists leaving in protest]. But for now we are sort of accepting the ambivalence even though that's partly painful. And using Spotify as a platform.
My playlist has 15 songs. There's a certain dramatic arc. Or actually a couple of them. It's possible to listen to just all of them but also from the beginning until song 11 or 12. That would be a sort of English arc. And then there's a couple of Finnish songs. And the last one, a long song by Mark Kozelek and Jimmy LeValle, ”Somehow the Wonder of Life Prevails”, is a sort of summary of many things in this playlist actually. So that's a sort of encore. An extra. A summary at the end.
But the playlist also roughly follows a process of an emotional journey. Or a process of a crisis. Which, after-all, encountering the climate crisis is also: a kind of personal, psychological, social crisis. I'm not just using any, you know, black and white version of Elizabeth Kübler Ross's “Stages of grief” or anything like that. But there is a certain sequence going on from shock, and then variations of anger and sadness, before moving on with the process model towards light and also towards an increased ability to feel joy again. So it's not just gloomy songs, but there's several songs that speak to either climate sadness or climate anger.
Doherty: Then I know in Finland they have a saying, like in the US we say play "Free Bird" or play "Stairway to Heaven," but they say “Soittakaa ‘Paranoid.’” So are you going to have Paranoid, Black Sabbath's song “Paranoid” on your playlist?
Pihkala: That's well pronounced, Thomas. You're proceeding well with your Finnish lessons. And it is indeed true that in almost every live gig in Finland somebody shouts "Soittakaa Paranoid." Usually the bands don't do it. But there's a history here. Thomas knows that I have one Black Sabbath song in my playlist. And the sort of multitude of heavy metal, hard rock bands coming out of Finland is of course something that lots of folks know internationally. Many of these Finnish hard rock bands have a following in Japan, for example. I didn't go very heavily into that. I did have a phase in my teenage years when I listened to a lot of heavy rock and that sort of thing.
But I'm actually starting with a song by Moby called "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad." Which refers to this phenomena which has been quite common in history when people start to feel some kind of climate anxiety. That they are thinking "why do I actually feel so bad?" And it's not obvious often, especially if there's not a public discussion or recognition of this kind of discourses of emotional distress and motivation. One has to remember that climate anxiety is also about motivation to do something about the threats. So, “Why does my heart feel so bad” and the Reprise version (2021). Moby published a sort of album full of revised versions of many [his] key songs. And this one, also, has a quite striking music video actually. We'll put the link to the podcast website, also. Which has graphic depictions of ecological grief. Especially related to more than human animals. Moby is a famous animal rights and vegan activist, also. And those elements also show on the video.
But that is followed by "Age of Reason" by Black Sabbath. A song which ends with a very fine electric guitar solo. Which is something that has helped me with many dark emotions. Perhaps that has links with my teenage years and the hard rock & heavy history. But the title of the song "Age of Reason" sort of plays with the "why does my heart feel so bad" element. So instead of an age of emotions we get an age of “reason”. And the lyrics of the song actually have points related to global crises. For example, if you listen to this part of the song [see Panu’s blog post for details] you'll notice that.
Doherty: Yeah I know the lyrics - "politics, religion, love and money too. It's what the world was built for, but not for me and you." So yes. It's a classic social commentary coming out of Black Sabbath. I appreciate that. And then I noticed we both have The Weather Station. The Weather Station is the one artist that's made it to both of our lists.
Pihkala: Yeah. Yeah that's a peculiar thing. And it ties in with this part in Black Sabbath's "Age of Reason" where there is "mass destruction hides the truth." This line. And then the Weather Station's name of the album is “Ignorance.” And that's of course a very interesting album related to climate emotions and anxiety. And Tamara Lindeman, the main artist behind The Weather Station, has been reading environmental psychologist Renée Lertzman's work. And it's interesting to have very high quality, popular music which is built also on understanding about climate psychology. And many of the lyrics are quite striking. I picked into my playlist a song called "Robber." Which is quite something. Also its music video. And one of the main themes of the song, at least for me, is the implicatedness which we have talked about in the podcast also. That we are all implicated whether we want or not. And then who's the robber and what are the means. [These are] Some of the questions that are being asked in the lyrics.
Doherty: Yeah. That's beautiful. I got a chance to see Tamara and her band play here in Portland at Mississippi Studios just near my house just a week or so ago. So that's great that you have her there. On your playlist. Yeah. Go on Panu. This is really fun.
Pihkala: Yeah. After the "Robber" the fourth song is a sort of classic rage and frustration song for many people from my generation: Smashing Pumpkins' "Bullet with Butterfly Wings." Which both stylistically and lyrically describes the frustration, you know, this famous line "despite all my rage I'm still just a rat in a cage." That speaks to many kinds of frustration. But for me, the song has always evoked images of frustration because of the social and political situation in the world, including ecological politics. And now I picked it here to depict frustration and anger and rage. Also feelings of helplessness because of the global ecological and climate crisis.
Doherty: So "despite all my rage I'm still just a rat in a cage" right? That's the lyric there. Despite all my rage I'm still a rat in a cage. And that's I think important. I don't know there's something about being a teen or a young person and seeing someone just name out these feelings. Something that we can grasp onto. So I appreciate that. And I think our listeners are appreciating it as well. Yeah.
Pihkala: Yeah. It's also linked to this wide topic of climate activism these days. And we know that many young people are very active in those movements. And that potential in teenage, being able to feel emotionally that moral outrage because of injustices. So that can be sometimes aggressive and even dangerous, but it's also very valuable in the world to be able to feel that moral outrage. But then my playlist goes more into the grief and sorrow territory. Although moral outrage is surfacing a couple of times. There's a very deep grief song by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds called "Sun Forest." Nick Cave actually lost his teenaged son and has done lots of songs which partly deal with that and other subjects of grief and sorrow. From this sort of dark waters, the playlist starts to move a bit more towards the light. The grief process goes on.
There's a young Finnish artist called Suad. And her song "The Burn" which is in English. [An] interesting song and a great album. After that there's a Depeche Mode cover by Tori Amos. One of my old favorites. So "Enjoy the Silence." Which is, of course, quite [a] classic song in pop music. For me it speaks of a kind of existential intensity. And that's one of the reasons why I included it here. "All I ever wanted, All I ever needed, is here in my arms." A very existential framing for me. And for me, personally, connected to, for example, spending time with the kids. Even amidst these eras of the ecological crisis.
Doherty: Yeah. Go on.
Pihkala: Then there's a very special song by the Icelandic post rock band Sigur Rós called Njósnavélin. Sorry for the Icelanders or Sigur Rós for the pronunciation. They sometimes use their own language. Not just Icelandic but [an] even more original language. And that's a very important song personally for me. And it manages to include both lightness and gravity. And it has this element of what the Finnish word suloisenhaikeus is about. So that's one of these peculiar emotion words that we are always interested about in this podcast. So, haikeus is that feeling that you are happy and gratitude-filled about something but you also realize that it's fleeting and passing. So it's related to realized finitude. And suloinen means sweet. So it's sort of sweet and sad at the same time, this suloisenhaikeus. And that's also an existential feeling amidst these climate times I think. And for me the song Njósnavélin captures that. And if you listen to the whole album that's quite a ride through various kinds of emotions. And even in those times almost fifteen years ago, they did a music video of the opening song which is very much about eco-anxiety or nuclear anxiety or both of them. Depending on how you interpret the video. But that was also interesting. But that was the first song of the album. Not the Njósnavélin which I've included here.
Doherty: Yeah. And then you have this song by the artist. I'm not sure how they pronounce their name. snny. This young artist. “A Better World”. And there's a classic artist embedded in that song. I found that very interesting.
Pihkala: Yeah. It includes content from “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” The classic song by [Bob] Dylan. And this is a nod towards rap and hip hop, which I very much often appreciate. Of course there's many kinds of that. But I don't listen to it very extensively in my personal life. But the mood of this song is related to me for the experience that the world is changing in many ways, but there's also an effort to adapt to that change. And also pursue goals which are deemed valuable. So those are some of the meanings that that song has for me.
Doherty: As always, we have to remember that whatever age we are, there are people that are younger than us coming up. And they have other takes on the world. And they're just starting on their life journey. And so they're just maybe just for the first time discovering the music of Bob Dylan or some of these classic songs that we've kept close to us for our lives. So we have to make peace for their new reality as well. So I appreciate that.
Pihkala: Yeah. I think that's right on. And in Finland, many rap and hip hop artists have made very interesting songs about the socio ecological crisis, also. I have especially one of those at the later part of the playlist. It's by Pyhimys, one of the most eminent rap artists in Finland. Called “Kynnet, Kynnet” [“Nails, nails”]. Which is a song about people losing their grip amidst the rapid changes in the contemporary world. Climate change is also mentioned in that song. And then by a young Finnish artist [Litku Klemetti], a sort of more wanderlust type of song which also has a lyrical point about climate change in the Finnish lyrics. But before those, there's two songs more about joy and empowerment. First one by a Canadian artist, Sandro Perri, with his Glissandro project, “Bolan Muppets”. That's quite indie stuff but I've liked it very much during the last ten years. I bought the album from a local store in Toronto once. And then there's perhaps surprisingly Katy Perry's “Roar.” We also need a sense of humor in these complex times. And I like the sort of conscious self-irony in the song and its music video. It has this, you know, “Eye of the Tiger” element. This determination that don't let other people grind you down. And finding your voice. But there's also this very humorous element in it.
Doherty: Yeah. And then this final song, the Mark Kozelek and Jimmy LaValle one. That's a beautiful song: “Somehow the Wonder of Life Prevails.”
Pihkala: Yeah, that's quite a title for a song. And the song has many verses about the life experiences of the lyrical author. And then amidst all the trouble there's still that attitude that somehow the wonder of life always prevails. And I guess that would be a sort of summary of many things in this playlist.
Doherty: It's really beautiful. We're going to share these playlists. There was one song that I might steal from your playlist. You didn't get a chance to mention Godspeed You Black Emperor’s “First of the Last Glaciers.” Kind of a … as anyone [who] knows Godspeed's music it is a very stirring…architectural, instrumental, post-rock kind of composition. But to me, I kind of just bow my head and listen because it gets to some of the wordless feelings that we have about this issue. About climate change and a lot of the things that are besetting us.
Pihkala: Yeah thanks for sharing that, Thomas. Their music has been very important for me, yeah.
Doherty: Well I think we have to wrap up or now, but this is the start of another trend for us of bringing in the arts and music. And I encourage people to make their own climate playlists. I know they already do. I know you already do out there. But really expanding your horizons into what constitutes music about and for climate change, and climate change emotional expression.
Pihkala: Yeah. And please do share with us some of your views either about songs that are very meaningful for you or even if you do construct playlists you'll find our contact info on the podcast website. So we'd love to hear from you.
Doherty: Indeed. Climatechangeandhappiness.com. Take care of yourselves folks.
Pihkala: Take care everyone.
