#14512: Hank Fox — 01/27  at  12:23 PM
It's not music, but I liked it anyway, way back when: the poem "Evolution" by Langdon Smith.

"When you were a tadpole and I was a fish
In the Paleozoic time,
And side by side on the ebbing tide
We sprawled through the ooze and slime,
Or skittered with many a caudal flip
Through the depths of the Cambrian fen,
My heart was rife with the joy of life,
For I loved you even then.

Mindless we lived and mindless we loved
And mindless at last we died;
And deep in the rift of the Caradoc drift
We slumbered side by side.
The world turned on in the lathe of time,
The hot lands heaved amain,
Till we caught our breath from the womb of death
And crept into life again.

[... lotsa verses skipped over]

Then as we linger at luncheon here
O'er many a dainty dish,
Let us drink anew to the time when you
Were a tadpole and I was a fish."

It gets a little goddy towards the end, but Smith lived in the late 1800s, so you gotta forgive him.

I was introduced to it by an 80+ year old unbeliever, who loved it.

Find it here: http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/int/evolution.html

I say we invite James Earl Jones, get him to read it in that deep, timeless voice of his, and it will SEEM like music.

#14547: — 01/27  at  06:51 PM
I'm an idiot. I totally forgot Moxy Fruvous' "Mitosis Waltz".

[In thick German accents]

If it's ze secrets of life that you seek,
Zen srough (through) a mi-croscope you must peek!

Mendel did vonders just using his eye,
But to really see, you must magnify.
You can't help but notice ve're nossing (nothing) but cells,
But vhere in ze cell does heredity dvell?

The Nu-cleus! That's vhere it hides.
You don't see much until it divides,
Then Chro-masomes enter new phases,
Split into two, und zat is ze basis

Of Sexual Transmission vhich olvays engrosses
Our feverish minds, but it's only Meiosis.
Reducing zee chromasomes fifty percent,
So vhen egg and sperm meet at zat blessed event,

Ze Chro-masomes form one full set.
Just two of each kind, zat's ze best best!

And that new cell begins to grow,
Multiplies into an Em-bryo.
Ze ex-plana-tion of zis growth
Is it's due to a process ve know as Mitosis!

And zat's vhat our Microscopes helped us determine,
In Germany, vhere un ze germ cells are German!

#14559: HairyMuseum — 01/27  at  09:26 PM
Russell Wodehouse composed a CD to travel with Ray Troll's 'Dancing to the Fossil Record' exhibit, that includes titles like 'Gondwana Dreamland' and 'Swingin' in the Family Tree'. Ray made a track available to download from his Ich-Theology Gallery on my site.

The track is called 'Chain of Being', and its a bit of music wrapped around an interview with Jacques Gauthier. Not a ditty that you'd find yourself absent-mindedly humming, but it is a nice head trip into increasingly inclusive kinship.

#14578: Hank Fox — 01/28  at  01:35 AM
I once wrote a couple of verses of the Gondwanaland National Anthem, but it sucked, and I won't repeat it here.

Still, I wouldn't mind at all if someone else tried their hand at it.

#14588: — 01/28  at  10:05 AM
XTC's "The Smartest Monkeys" is a good evolution song.

I thought and thought but could not come up with a Robyn Hitchcock song featuring evolution - surprising, given how much he sings about squids and cells and things emerging from primordeal slime. In searching for a tune of his featuring evolution, I was reminded of the old classic "Victorian Squid" which, though not featuring evolution, might still be appeciated by PZ.

#14604: — 01/28  at  01:17 PM
Conor Oberst has a new song called:

"When the President Talks to God"

It can probably fit in somewhere since it deals broadly with the Bush administration's assaults on secularism. It's also a good old-fashioned Dylanesque rant!

#14895: — 01/31  at  11:25 PM
Seconded: Shriekback, Nemesis:

"Greeks and cannibals, prehistoric animals
Everybody happy as the dead come home.
Big black Nemesis, parthenogenesis
No one move a muscle as the dead come home."

Offered: C-Tec (aka Cyber-Tec Project), Foetal (from 1997's "Darker")

"I was already there when the Earth was unborn,
We were already there together, floating free,
I've been a drop, I ve been a source, I've been a river, a lake
I was the fire below the feet of Joan of Arc
We're on the way to being Gods
I've been a rock, I've been an oak, I've been a lion, an ape
I was the look turning humans into statues of salt
We're on the way to being Gods!"

And finally, Front Line Assembly, basically, anything by them at any time, but if you can pick only one album, go for Hard Wired, and if you can pick only one track, pick "Transparent Species":

http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/frontlineassembly/hardwired.html

">B>Seconded: Shriekback, Nemesis:

"Greeks and cannibals, prehistoric animals
Everybody happy as the dead come home.
Big black Nemesis, parthenogenesis
No one move a muscle as the dead come home."

Offered: C-Tec (aka Cyber-Tec Project), Foetal (from 1997's "Darker")

"I was already there when the Earth was unborn,
We were already there together, floating free,
I've been a drop, I ve been a source, I've been a river, a lake
I was the fire below the feet of Joan of Arc
We're on the way to being Gods
I've been a rock, I've been an oak, I've been a lion, an ape
I was the look turning humans into statues of salt
We're on the way to being Gods!"

And finally, Front Line Assembly, basically, anything by them at any time, but if you can pick only one album, go for Hard Wired, and if you can pick only one track, pick "Transparent Species":

http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/frontlineassembly/hardwired.html

"It's time to wake up!
It's time to recieve!
It's time for immersion!
Transparent species!"

It doesn't come out through the lyrics -- but it does come through in the vocal inflection and chord progression -- that the transformation from man to machine is a good thing (or at least, is to be embraced).

Besides, who says our successor species has to be made out of meat?

Crap. Forgot Front 242: Headhunter.

"Today he has no means, he's alone and anonymous.
But written in his cells, he's got the mark of a genius,
I'm looking for this man, to sell him to other man,
To sell him to other man, at ten times his price at least.
(I'm looking for this man, who knows the rules of the game,
Who's able to forget them, to realize my aim.)
One - you lock the target,
Two - you bait the line,
Three - you slowly spread the net,
And four - you catch the man."

Others for your consideration (and somewhat on the lighter side):

Jesus Jones: Zeroes and Ones (Perverse, 1993)
KMFDM: Brute (Nihil, 1995)
The Shamen: Destination Eschaton (CD single, 1995)
Front 242: Headhunter (Front By Front, 1988)
Front 242; Headhunter Empirion Mix (Headhunter 2000, 2000)
Clock DVA: (the entire discography
Cyber-Tec Project: Let Your Body Die (EP, 1995)
Icon Of Coil: Comment V2.0 and the rest of the album Machines Are Us, 2004.
Xorcist: Iron Helix (Phantoms, 1995, also appeared in a video game - plot summary involves an rampaging AI and genetic engineering)
Billy Idol - Venus (and other tracks from Cyberpunk, 1991, but Venus is a personal fave due to samples of the 1969 lunar landings.)

"It's time to wake up!
It's time to recieve!
It's time for immersion!
Transparent species!"

It doesn't come out through the lyrics -- but it does come through in the vocal inflection and chord progression -- that the transformation from man to machine is a good thing (or at least, is to be embraced).

Besides, who says our successor species has to be made out of meat?

Crap. Forgot Front 242: Headhunter.

"Today he has no means, he's alone and anonymous.
But written in his cells, he's got the mark of a genius,
I'm looking for this man, to sell him to other man,
To sell him to other man, at ten times his price at least.
(I'm looking for this man, who knows the rules of the game,
Who's able to forget them, to realize my aim.)
One - you lock the target,
Two - you bait the line,
Three - you slowly spread the net,
And four - you catch the man."

Others offered for your consideration (and somewhat on the lighter side, mostly light danceable industrial):

Jesus Jones: Zeroes and Ones (Perverse, 1993)
KMFDM: Brute (Nihil, 1995)
The Shamen: Destination Eschaton (CD single, 1995)
Front 242: Headhunter (Front By Front, 1988)
Front 242; Headhunter Empirion Mix (Headhunter 2000, 2000)
Clock DVA: (the entire discography
Cyber-Tec Project: Let Your Body Die (EP, 1995)
Icon Of Coil: Comment V2.0 and the rest of the album Machines Are Us, 2004.
Xorcist: Iron Helix (Phantoms, 1995, also appeared in a video game - plot summary involves an rampaging AI and genetic engineering)
Billy Idol - Venus (and several other tracks from Cyberpunk, 1991, but Venus is a personal fave due to samples of the 1969 lunar landings.)

#14897: — 01/31  at  11:32 PM
The Kinks (alhough they certainly don't sound like the Kinks I'm familiar with) have a song called Ape-Man.
Lyrics are here, but here's a sample:
Compared to the bugs and the spiders and flies
I am an ape man
In man’s evolution he has created the cities and
The motor traffic rumble, but give me half a chance
And I’d be taking off my clothes and living in the jungle
’cos the only time that I feel at ease
Is swinging up and down in a coconut tree

#14902: platosearwax — 02/01  at  02:00 AM
Wow, Foobar. I should have caught all those as well since most of those CD's are in my collection.