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Many songs are composed of vivid imagery. When searching for a subject to write a song about, what more could a musician ask for than science and its associated images? Science is full of many emotional and thought provoking images. Examples include the mad scientist with miles on end of glass tubing, the magical power of rocket engines blasting someone to the moon, and in the end, the total destruction of the world by our own means. Images of science find their way into music for all of the these reasons. However, there are many, more subtle, images of science that often occur in songs. Songs like "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" and "Dance Band on the Titanic" show how Man often puts his most advanced technology in conflict with nature. When Man makes an attempt to take total control of nature, he soon learns that nature will not be taken over without a fight. Many of the songs we have selected associate science with negative imagery. "In the Year 2525" and "Eve of Destruction" depict the world ending by mankind's ill use of technology. Other songs that we selected for this project tell us how as scientific knowledge increases, the pace of life going faster and faster. An example of this is "Summer in the City," in which a listener can feel the fast pace of life through the music and the lyrics. Other songs talk about technologies being wasted on useless projects, such as occurs in "A Space Oddity." |