"Jack do you never sleep--does the green still run deep in your heart? Or will these changing times, motorways, powerlines, keep us apart? Well I don't think so. I saw some grass growing through the pavements today." (Jack in the Green, Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull from the album Songs from the Wood, 1977)
Nature is the theme of much of the music of my longtime favorite rockband, Jethro Tull. Their artistry encompasses much more and transcends. I learned on the net that the band's leader, Ian Anderson, sold the Strathaird estate on the Isle of Skye to the John Muir Trust. A man who practices what he preaches: Go Ian! I thought I would kick off the show with a deep cut from the Jethro Tull album Living in the Past. The lyrics are critical to the full appreciation of the music, so I'm posting the lyrics:
Of course, "favorite" rock band depends on mood, and when I feel saturnine, my favorite band is Pink Floyd. As far as the Pink Floyd debate goes, I respect equally Roger Waters, the manic depressive artistic force of the original band, and David Gilmour, the greatest lyrical/sonorous/melancholic guitarist to ever walk the earth. I view their split as mitosis: where there was one, now there are two. The Division Bell, Pink Floyd's latest, assesses the damages of the cold war (see A Great Day for Freedom) while Amused to Death is Roger Waters' soliloquy about modern war on modern television (e.g. the Gulf War, Libya, and now the Sudan and Afghanistan), modern economics, modern religion, and other forms of modern insanity.
It is true that people are only motivated by money.
But there is hope: Chicago Board of Trade Adds Recylables to its Commodities Exchange
You may have heard of the 3 R's in school. Here are my 5 E's: "Education about Evolution leads to an understanding of Ecology and our dependence on the Environment for our survival on Earth." This organization keeps Evolution in the science classroom: National Center for Science Education
I plan on playing some other favorites, including Dire Straits, Fleetwood Mac, Supertramp, Heart, The Pretenders, and more, but remember, I only have an hour!
Here is my planned public service announcement: