bn_songbook | Entries tagged with topic

Avinu Malkeinu (Our Father, Our King) is a solemn hymn chanted on the holiest days of the Jewish year, reminding us of the G-d before whom we stand. Modern progressive Jews vary in their relationship to those particular metaphors. This new, um, translation, reveals a surprisingly modern and scientific view of the Source of Life in the coming together of simple organic molecules under geothermal heat.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Avinu Malkeinu", trad. Hebrew

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Amino volcano

Molecular tango

Amino volcano, molecular tango

That gave rise to all living beings

They say the dawn-soup

Thickened when heated

They say the dawn-soup thickened when heated

And out of that soup we all grew

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Based on a haunting and pointed Advent hymn, this song is a pointed rebuke to religious conservatives who blame natural disasters and the decline of nations on the "sins" of the same people they've always picked on, while ignoring the very real sins that scientists agree are responsible for the weirding of Earth's climate — the very sins, even, that the Bible calls out as leading to the destruction of nations (no, not carbon emissions specifically, the ancients didn't know that, but refusing to let the Earth rest).

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Each Winter as the Year Grows Older" by William & Annabeth Gay

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A bowerbird's bower may not be as shiny as a bird that is literally on fire, but it's pretty shiny.

Featuring the top of my new filing cabinet on percussion.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Firebird's Child" by S.J. Tucker

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Plants of course depend on nutrients in the soil, but the bulk of the matter that makes up a plant, and especially a tree, is just this: water and air, spun together with light.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman
after "A Tree Song" by Rudyard Kipling
set to music by Peter Bellamy

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Another song about the true horror that is parasitoid wasps.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Singin' in the Rain" by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown

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The song "The Rolling Mills of New Jersey" is affectionate in tone but basically paints NJ as an industrial wasteland. Which, sure, some of it is, but much of the state is green and growing. This song provides a counterpoint.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "The Rolling Hills of the Border" by Matt McGinn

after "The Rolling Mills of New Jersey" by John Roberts and Tony Barrand

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A recursive journey into a Magritte or Escher vision of a Zen garden.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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The threat of climate change calls for a particular kind of hero...

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Man of La Mancha (I, Don Quixote)" by Joe Darion and Mitch Leigh

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A suggestive love song from a flower to her pollinator, or (as we say) "the birds and the bees".

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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lyrics and music by Ben Newman

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lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Kaze no Toorimichi" (Path of Wind) from My Neighbor Totoro by Joe Hisaishi

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This song just might be a little bit autobiographical.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Waltzing with Bears" by Dr. Seuss, Eugene Poddany and Dale Marxen

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A nature story as true as it is creepy, by way of David Attenborough

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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A song about the experience of being, or wishing to be, a sloth. Also I got the refrain in my head and couldn't unhear it.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "As Cool As I Am" by Dar Williams

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Ben's Songs

Entries tagged with topic_nature

Amino Volcano

Each Winter as the World Grows Warmer

Bowerbird

Water and Light and Air (A Tree Song)

Sting It in the Brain

The Living Earth of New Jersey

The Withinward Garden

When Windmills Return

Honeybird

Garden

The Footprints of the Wind

Flirting with Trees

Blue Butterfly

As Slow As I Am

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December 2025

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