PLANET NOTES
An International Playlist
Environmental Destruction
There is nothing to gloss over when it comes to environmental destruction and pollution. Lakes are drying out, water and air are polluted, glaciers are melting, forests are shrinking, and isles out of plastic in the ocean are growing, while we just keep living our life as we have always done. The earth is changing constantly, but man accelerates these changes so that the earth gets out of balance. Every year we reach Earth Overshoot Day a little bit earlier – the day on which the consumption of renewable raw materials exceeds the Earth's capacity to reproducing these resources. In 1987 we reached this limit on October 23rd, in 2019 we achieved a sad record with July 29th. We have to take care of our planet Earth. Maybe we should go for a walk more often, take a deep breath and the time to cherish the wonders of nature to remember, what you need to change for.
VERGIFTET
DOTA
“Bringt mich von hier fort, alles, alles ist vergiftet“ – this song is about escaping from earth full of pollution (“Nitrat, Nitrit”) and food additives (“Sorbit, Glutamat”). “Auf den Türmen auf den Dächern steh’n die Masten, die längst alles erfassten” – Dota also sings about the modern technology controlling and observing all our lives. This song leaves a sense of dislike and distrust in modern technology and the modern way of life, which is ‘unnatural’ and artificial.
MONKEY GONE TO HEAVEN
Pixies
This song's lyrics are kind of enigmatic, but apart from strange numerology, it's also about pollution of the ocean through big cities like New York and New Jersey and the destruction of the ozone layer by humans. The ocean acts as the largest carbon sink of the earth, as a habitat for countless creatures, as a kind of thermostat and finally as a food source for us. The sea is sensitive to pollution and without a functioning ecosystem and an intact atmosphere “this monkey's gone to heaven”.
LASS LIEGEN
Alligatoah
This song is a very critical song about our throwaway society and pollution. We leave our trash everywhere, from batteries, cigarette stubs up to atomic waste. “Ich lass es lieber liegen, lieber neue Waren, statt verwahren” – we buy cheap new things instead of keeping and maintaining them, we buy the trash of tomorrow (“Ich kaufe den Müll von morgen”). “Wenn dir der geröstete Panda nicht schmeckt, lass liegen” – Alligatoah also broaches the issue of inconsiderate food consume and the consequences of our western lifestyle for developing countries. “Wie ein […] Boomerang, ruf ich in den Wald, aber vergess, dass der auch rufen kann” – but we forget that our action will catch up with us like a boomerang.
RULES OF CHANGE
Neil Young
This song is about the appropriation of seeds and therefore life by big corporations like Monsanto („Seeds are life that can't be owned, not even by Monsanto“). The dependence of farmers all over the world on seeds for their nutrition and their earnings is exploited by these companies. Life does just function as source of income („Out of balance money grows, Corporations take control“). Patents on foods are very questionable - life should not be owned by anyone. Which side are we on? „Wrong side of right, right side of wrong“?
BIG YELLOW TAXI
Joni Mitchell
„They paved paradise and put up a parking lot“ – nature always has to lose ground for us. We claim the earth for our purposes without attributing it any rights. We have to think critically about land usage and we should allow nature more space – both physically and in our thinking. “They took all the trees and put them in a tree museum” – we like nature under our control and as something beautiful and predictable and pay money to see animals and plants in zoos and greenhouses. “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don´t know what you’ve got til it's gone” We often act too late, so let's share the earth with other creatures and change now!