When Doves Cry

Have you ever wondered how many songs there are out there about animals? I have which clearly suggests I’ve got way too much time on my hands.

I first became aware of animal songs as a child with ‘How Much Is That Doggy In The Window?’ and ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ which, bizarrely, was once changed by our politically correct elite to ‘Baa Baa Purple Sheep’ or something along those lines. Purple? It’s enough to turn me bloody purple just thinking about morons like that being allowed to breathe let alone mess about with kids nursery rhymes.

Anyway, I digress, as always.

I’ve always hoped that so many songs about animals and other creatures and the success of same actually means that lots of us care about our environment and the creatures that live in it.

Clearly the extinction of so many creatures over the decades tends to suggest otherwise but, I suppose, lots of people will say “Awwww” when they hear a song about a bird or a cat or a dog or a wolf but would probably be disinclined to actually get off their fat asses and do anything about any of the cruelty that humankind perpetrates on the animal kingdom.

There’s the rub eh? Most people will listen to songs about animals and feel all cutesy or awed or amazed or sad depending on what the song is saying but will they give any of their time to trying to save the lives and ensuring the survival of the animal in the song they like? Nope.

‘Haven’t the time’, ‘Oh someone will sort it all out’, ‘You want to spend HOW MUCH of MY taxes saving Polar Bears??’

Of course, when you come to think about it, once you go beyond children’s nursery rhymes there aren’t actually that many songs that are really about the animal named in the song. Florence and The Machines ‘The Dog Days Are Over’ is a great song but hasn’t anything to do with dogs at all.  America’s ‘Horse With No Name’ has nothing to do with a horse at all. As far as I can recall isn’t it something to do with native Americans? Well, regardless, if it is a four legged horse in the song it hasn’t even got a name.

Britain’s Mud had two huge hits with ‘The Cat Crept In’ – nothing to do with cats – and ‘Tiger Feet’ – nothing to do with tigers. The Beatles ‘Rocky Raccoon’ was about a small boy called, oddly, Rocky Raccoon and had absolutely bugger all to do with raccoons.

Mumford and Sons ‘Little Lion Man’ – any real lions involved here? Nope. Culture Clubs ‘Karma Chameleon’ – a song about Boy George’s pet lizard perhaps? Nope.

Ahhh! Yes! The B52’s ‘Rock Lobster’. Now that was a song about a lobster that was a lobster – well, a lobster that rocked. Quite.

Former Stone Roses (yes them again) front man Ian Brown has a song called ‘Dolphins Were Monkeys’ so at least it mentions two species but not exactly as either Dolphins nor monkeys would probably understand any more than I do.

Now don’t misunderstand me. You can leave that entirely for me to do for myself after a few Buds. There are many many marvellous and enjoyable songs that mention animals of one kind or another. ‘Stray Cat Strut’ by The Stray Cats, ‘Wolf At The Door’ by Radiohead, ‘The Butterfly Collector’ by The Jam and so on and so forth but, it’s almost not a surprise really is it?

We, humanity, have been ‘using and abusing’ our planet for so many generations it follows that animals and other creatures are considered of secondary importance to us. We, humanity, are the Gods of all we survey and, if some dumb bird called a Dodo is so dumb it can’t even fly then it only has itself to blame for it’s extinction. Maybe someone will write a song about it – although, if they do, I doubt it will be really about a Dodo.

So lets all sing about the animals and creatures in our world before they’re all gone and we forget they were ever here.

I know – I’m feeling a wee bit maudlin but when you read stuff like this how can you not be?

‘The story of the Passenger Pigeon is one of the most tragic extinction stories in modern times. As recently as around 200 years ago they weren’t anywhere near extinction. In fact, they were actually the most common bird in North America, and some reports counted single flocks numbering in the billions. Pigeon meat was commercialized and recognized as cheap food, especially for slaves and the poor, which led to a hunting campaign on a massive scale. Furthermore, due to the large size of their flocks, the birds were seen as a threat to farmers. The last Passenger Pigeon, named Martha, died alone at the Cincinnati Zoo at about 1:00 pm on September 1, 1914′.

‘The Baiji dolphin population declined drastically in recent decades as China industrialized and made heavy use of the river for fishing, transportation, and hydroelectricity. As China developed economically, pressure on the river dolphin grew significantly. Industrial and residential waste flowed into the Yangtze. The riverbed was dredged and reinforced with concrete in many locations. Ship traffic multiplied, boats grew in size, and fishermen employed wider and more lethal nets. Noise pollution caused the nearly blind animal to collide with propellers. In the 1970s and 1980s, an estimated half of Baiji deaths were attributed to entanglement in fishing gear. Only a few hundred were left by 1970. Then the number dropped down to 400 by the 1980s and then to 13 in 1997 when a full-fledged search was conducted. The dolphin was declared functionally extinct after an expedition late in 2006 failed to record a single individual after an extensive search of the animal’s entire range’.

The above taken from www.listverse.com

Some years ago I watched a TV programme when a TV crew accompanied whale fishermen and one was asked what music he was listening to in his headphones as he stood at his harpoon post.

“Whale songs” he said with a grin.

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