Licensing schmicenshing, maybe we can’t put the mp3 on our site. But we can share these videos!
Raye – Environmental Anxiety
AND Raye, with Hans Zimmer, Mother Nature (beautiful song)
Raye’s beautiful voice and phrasing wraps around topics that many other artists might shy away from. Body issues, the environment, misogyny – she makes her thoughts eminently listenable.
Childish Gambino – Feels Like Summer
Feels Like Summer could seem like a plain ol’ BOP, with its swinging beat and tone. But he is not just getting into the warm weather – he is imploring people to see that the warmer weather is warming climate, that bee populations are being decimated, and that parents need to do something more for their kids.
Kacey Musgraves – Oh What a World (live version)
We need a song about how beautiful the Earth is, and Kasey Musgrove has written it. Sort of subversive, talking about the wonder, of it all, and reminding us we need to be better stewards.
Paloma Faith – The Architect
Paloma Faith wrote that she didn’t want to make an album with love songs, but rather a record with social observations. Her retro pop lulls you in, and then the lyrics hit. The Architect could be a love that’s not going so well song, but it is about how we are treating the planet.
Gotye – Eyes Wide Open
Gotye, aka Australian artist Wouter “Wally” De Backer came to global fame with the earworm song Somebody I Used to Know in 2011. Also on the Making Mirrors album was this song decrying how we keep consuming in the face of knowing it is ultimately harming us.
Missy Higgins – Starting Again
Missy Higgins seems to be singing about the new life she brought into a world that is being treated so cruelly by humankind. Parents must be so worried about the world we are leaving the next generations (though it is hard to feel right now that many parents are doing anything to fix it). This is off her 2018 album Solastalgia, Wikipedia tells us that solastalgia means ‘a form of emotional or existential distress caused by negatively perceived environmental change.’
