Featured Overman Song: Evolution Rocks
Song Information
Release: June 9th, 2008
Album: Charles Darwin and the Princess
Recorded: Uptown Recording
Download: Amazon, iTunes
Listen Live: Pure Volume
Video: The Making of Evolution Rocks
Lyrics
Sometimes it’s dangerous to think outside the box,
To be different, to be unorthodox.
Just like Isaac Newton beneath an apple tree,
and the Theory of Relativity.
Charles Darwin was a naturalist,
He had some funky new ideas about how we exist.
He thought a lot about what makes living things the same,
Natural selection1 , evolutionary change.
*Now Pre-Darwinian science was influenced heavily by theology. It was believed
that all organisms were created simultaneously by God, and all life-forms were
unchanging from the moment of their creation.
Darwin thought-this can’t be.*
It was 1831 when the Beagle2 sailed the sea,
On the voyage that sowed the seeds for Darwin’s place in history.
They docked at Tortoise Island near some cactus3 by the shore,
Surrounded by Galapagos creatures they had never seen before.
The finches’ beaks4 weren’t all the same,
Darwin gave the birds different names.
Back to England with news for the king:
The origin of species is
a traceable thing!
*And thus Darwinian science was developed. Evolution does occur. Evolutionary change is gradual and driven by natural selection. Every species alive today arose from a single original life form. Everything we have believed to this point is wrong.*
On the Origin of Species5, Victorians6 be damned,
Favorable adaptation, to live is to adapt.
Competing for survival yields offspring of the strong,
The weak don’t eat, I guess they don’t belong.
Evolution is natural, It’s theorized and factual.
To think that all the birds we see, playing in the brush,
Once were feathered little dinosaurs7, they’ve grown up so much.
*Initially there was much opposition to Darwin from religious thinkers and some scientists. But it was soon overcome. Evolution was accepted by the middle classes. The human race, the highest product of evolution, was now at the cutting edge of progress toward higher things.*
Four billion years now,
the tree of life grows on
Ninety-nine percent of species have come and now they’re gone.
A simile to the affinities, we’re all made up of dust,
It’s ok to think this way, your God won't mind that much
Sometimes it’s dangerous to stay inside the box,
Keeping that in mind I think evolution rocks.
Keeping that in mind, I think evolution rocks.
Tidbits
Yikes!
It was 10PM on the eve of my last day of biology class at Columbia College. At 9:30 the following morning I was to show up to class with a presentation that counted for half of our overall grade, one that we had been working on for 6 weeks. The fact was, at 10PM on that Sunday night, I had been working on my final project for no more than 45 minutes. I had decided the subject of my presentation would be evolution and had managed to throw together a very average PowerPoint presentation; meh. In what proved to be a very good decision, I decided audible to a high risk/high reward plan and write a song about evolution and play it for my class.
I stayed up all night researching, writing, singing and testing different phrasings until the song seemed presentable. I labored until 8AM, when I had to drive to class and printed out lyrics for all my classmates, adding these rarely seen endnotes to elaborate on some of the lyrics.
I got to class and wasn't sure if people would love it or if it would be obvious that I had written "My Evolution Song" over the course of the last 12 hours. I was nervous. I got through the song without any major flubs and was relieved to see Professor Elaine Ross stand up and cheer loudly, smiling from cheek to cheek. Phew, I thought, I think I passed!
Sometimes procrastination pays off.
Thanks for listening, enjoy!
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