Science in Song
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NO. 86: JUNE 2008 ISSN: 1751-8261 Contents Science in song Main feature 1 Science in song Melanie Keene considers the yield of the Outreach and Education BSHS grants report 4 project on songs that reflect, satirise and celebrate science. A reception study? 5 Reports of Meetings 6 ‘Oh! have you heard the news of late, reach and Education Committee has been About our great original state; collecting examples of scientific songs from BSHS Postgrad Conference If you have not, I will relate the past two hundred years. Ranging across BSLS The grand Darwinian theory…’ historical periods, geographic locations, musi- Imperial & Colonial Medicine cal and lyrical genres, disciplinary divisions, Wrexham Science Festival How did you first come to hear about the and degrees of expertise, many different theory of evolution? For many children at the cultures have embraced the choral possibili- Reviews 9 end of the 19th century it was through The ties of the natural and technological worlds. ‘Undead controversies’ 10 Scottish Students’ Songbook and John Young’s Encompassing everything from 17th-century scientific song ‘The Grand Darwinian Theory’. ballads on fen drainage to Jingle Bells rewrit- The questionnaire 10 But why was a member of the Perthshire ten as a carol celebrating lipid biochemistry, BSHS news 12 Society of Natural Science writing such lyrics? this diverse array of tunes and lyrics was What is the history of science in song? composed by figures from the well-known News 14 Over the last few months the BSHS Out- Irving Berlin to the rather more mysteriously- Listings 15 BJHS, Viewpoint details 16 Editorial This issue is again kicked off with an excel- lent leading article, this time by Melanie Keene on ‘scientific’ songs. In this essay she shows that new theories and technologies have often been the subject of songs by both experts and the public, and suggests that these might lead to new ways of reaching the public in the present. Proving that there is a huge public for history of science, John van Wyhe’s contri- bution looks at the extraordinary recep- tion of Darwin Online’s latest release of papers. Current BSHS-supported research is outlined by Stephanie Eichberg, in her report on the papers of the Swiss poly- math Albrecht von Haller. A possible future research project is suggested by Graham Richards: ‘undead controversies’, or scien- tific disputes that fail to follow the usual routes of closure. The subject of the Questionnaire is Frank James, the out-going president, and the issue is completed with reviews, news of the Society and the profession. Contribu- tions to the next issue should be sent to newsletter[a]bshs.org.uk by 15 Aug 2008. ‘There’s a Wireless Station Down in My Heart’ (New York: Broadway Rebekah Higgitt, Editor Music Corp, 1913) – Lewis Music Library, MIT. 2 Viewpoint No. 86 ‘Too Thin, or Darwin’s Little Joke: A Comic vast amount of music that dealt with the age Song’ (New York: William A. Pond, 1874) of atomic warfare, which has been collected – Lester S. Levy collection, Sheridan as a box-set entitled ‘Atomic Platters’. Libraries, permission from Johns Hopkins Songs were also written by those within University Library. the scientific community themselves: many societies – from the eminent Geological to a rather more obscure circle of 1930s Viennese economists who sang about marginal utility on 5th Avenue and the ‘Prince of W(h)ales’. and the business cycle – have included witty The song concluded that ‘the theory Darwin- ditties as almost as essential a component of ian/In my humble poor opinion/Is the only their meetings as readings of papers, or ‘vig- one to clear away the fog’. orous’ intellectual debate. The songs formed Technological innovation provided another part of a sociable culture of fraternal commu- focus of attention for song-writers, as they nities; music-making that cemented bonds celebrated or critiqued the impact of new of shared interests, pursuits, and vocations. inventions. For example, one lyric of August For example, the Cavendish Physical Soci- 1858 hailed ‘The Anglo-Saxon Twins, con- ety’s Post-Prandial Proceedings documented nected by the Atlantic Telegraph’, in lines a continued tradition of song-writing about to be sung to the popular tune of Yankee the subjects and objects of research in the Doodle Dandy: famous Cambridge laboratory, usually rewrit- ing the words to well-known tunes. ‘Ions SUCCESS at last sits, like a crown, Mine’ (to the melody of ‘Clementine’) evoked Upon our work gigantic; the atmosphere of working with elementary Behold the Telegraph laid down particles in 1906: Beneath the broad Atlantic. Yankee doodle, &c. In the dusty lab’ratory, ‘Mid the coils and wax and twine, The cable ‘two thousand miles beneath There the atoms in their glory the sea’ was lauded as facilitating the spread named ‘O’Rangoutang’. (above) From this Ionise and recombine. potential cacophony of clashing subjects, a of a free press and the potential destruction few key themes can be discerned.1 of despots by the now literally conjoined Scientific theories and heroic personages nations. The last verse acknowledged the themselves have been subject to lyrical inter- scientific understanding of its audience, with pretation, being encapsulated in and commu- a pun on the ‘inclination’ of the lyricist. nicated via a musical medium. Evolutionary At the turn of the 20th century new biology has been the inspiration for a number technologies such as the telephone, electric of these songs; ‘The Grand Darwinian Theory’ lighting, wireless, and, eventually, aeroplanes, made many appearances in a popular music (1878) was just one example that attempted hall culture that defined itself by comic com- to engage its listener in conversation about mentary on modernity and the ‘spirit of the the origins of man. Set to the popular 19th- age’. Titles including ‘Come Take a Trip in My century ditty ‘The King of the Cannibal Airship’, ‘The Lover’s Telegraph’, and ‘There’s Islands’, Young’s lyrics relied on its audience’s a Wireless Station Down in My Heart’ (see p. familiarity with that original subject, punning 1), exploited the inventions of the day but that when eating Victorian delicacies from linked them to traditional romantic topics. For grouse to mutton: ‘What horrible cannibals example, Berlin’s 1912 jaunty cautionary tale we must be,/Devouring the flesh, which warned its young female listeners to ‘Keep may yet become we’? Young’s rather critical Away from the Fellow Who Owns an Automo- and horrified response to the possibility of a bile’. Characterised as ‘a certain flirtin’ man’, the familial relationship with other creatures can chorus counselled that this fellow would ‘take be contrasted with Fred Lyster’s more positive you far in his motor car, Too darn far from your ‘Evolution: An Anthropological Rhyme’ (1885), Pa and Ma’. Once in the car, things could take (right) which pondered the animal character- a dangerous turn: ‘There’s no chance to talk, istics retained by figures in society, from ‘lyin’ squawk or balk, You must kiss him or get out (lion) men at the law courts to ‘pretty ducks’ and walk’! The least said about the sad fate 1. As it was impossible to thank everyone person- of the motorists who appeared in the second ally at the time, the author would like to acknowl- verse the better: after they had run out of ‘Evolution: An Anthropological Rhyme’ edge the help of all those who responded to petrol, the song ended by claiming ‘that (1885)– Lester S. Levy collection, Sheridan her survey last year and offered their wonderful suggestions of songs, many of which appear in they’re walking yet’… Such responses to new Libraries, permission from Johns Hopkins this article. technologies reached its apotheosis in the University Library. Viewpoint No. 86 Chorus. Oh my darlings! Oh my darlings! anything I wouldn’t synthesize. Oh, and the Oh my darling ions mine! reciprocal of pi to your good wife’), we should You are lost and gone for ever instead teach thermodynamics through song, When just once you recombine! which he then attempted to do by getting Donald Swann to repeat that ‘you can’t pass These songs written for the restricted com- heat from a cooler to a hotter’. This culture of munity of experts often relied on technical didactic scientific singing survives in modern detail and a familiarity with particular scien- universities: at Cambridge, biochemist Ron tific processes: as the Biochemist’s Songbook Laskey has entertained generations of Natural (now in its second edition) hinted with its Science tripos students by unveiling his guitar title, this was really a work for practitioners at the last lecture of term, and by being the only. Anyone else would find the chorus to only person who could get away with rhym- ‘Protein Synthesis’ rather difficult to compre- ing ‘Babbage’ with ‘cabbage’. hend (to be sung to the refrain ‘My Bonnie The success of scientific singing appears Lies Over The Ocean’): to be guaranteed for the 21st century. Contemporary artists continue to draw on Intron and exons science and the history of science for lyrical Changes are posttranscriptional, and all inspiration, such as the Super Furry Animals’ Glycosylations ‘Hermann Loves Pauline’, which chronicled Don’t alter such basics at all the relationship between Albert Einstein’s parents, and name-checked Marie Curie, and Such jargon-laden in-joke humour was an Coldplay’s ‘The Scientist’ and ‘The Speed easy target for satirical mockery; and, indeed, of Sound’. Trawling the internet reveals yet the 19th-century pages of Punch fairly hum ‘Live Wires Rag’ (Chicago: Harold Rossiter, further musical delights, including a selection (if not groan) with songs, covering musical 1910) – Lewis Music Library, MIT.