SONG: “This Stupid War.” (To download: double right-click & “Save As”)
ARTIST: grant.
SOURCE: Based on “Pesticide exposure linked to brain changes: study”, AFP, via Yahoo!News, 30 Apr 2012, as used in the post “Stupid pesticide lowers your kids’ IQs.”.
ABSTRACT: This song was a response to Bill Corbett’s SongFu prompt, “Write an upbeat, danceable song telling the story of some kind of battle.” Upbeat – I’m assuming this means “optimistic” and not necessarily “prior to or emphasizing the first and third beats in a measure,” or even more technically “anacrusis.” Although this may do that, I’m not book-learned enough to tell. I tried to start on as optimistic a note as possible. And danceable… well, a waltz is a dance, right? I think I can dance a waltz, anyway. It’s the classic bride’s first dance at weddings… because anybody can waltz!
The battle here is the perennial one against insect pests, which we seem to be winning – temporarily. But we’re also experiencing all kinds of unforeseen casualties, including, apparently, our kids’ brains. The locus coeruleus, which I’m sure I’m mispronouncing in the song (it should actually sound like “cerulean”), is the part of the brain that controls feelings of anxiety. It’s also the part of the brain directly affected by CPF, or chlorpyrifos, so suitably enough, as our IQs are lowered by this nearly ubiquitous pesticide, we’ll get progressively less and less anxious about it. That’s something to look forward to!
I kind of wished I had Mark Mothersbaugh’s voice for this, because that kind of cracked, de-evolutionary optimism is right where I was aiming this song. I can’t tell you if the beat is made from sprinklers or locust song or dumb machines, because it’s made from all three. Oh. I told you. Well, don’t tell anyone else, OK?
Lyrics:
We couldn’t be happier!
And we’ll never know hunger!
Ants swarm like soldiers!
So we man the crop dusters!This stupid war
We fight in the fields
Over each wave of grainTo each shining shore
We spray every day
Though it costs us our brainsIt’s all so difficult!
For the non-neurotypical!
A slow locus coeruleus!
From too much chlorpyrifos!This stupid war
We fight in the fields
Over each wave of grainTo each shining shore
We spray every day
Though it costs us our brainsThis stupid war
We fight in the fields
Over each wave of grainTo each shining shore
We spray every day
Though it costs us our brainsWe couldn’t be happier…
We’ll never know hunger…
Ants swarm like soldiers…
Man the crop dusters….