A big hat tip to Jef Poskanzer who’s posted the entire collection of Singing Science Records online. This six-LP series was published in the 1950s and early 1960s.
John Linnell of They Might Be Giants, in a recent interview with Nature (in print and on our podcast) cited the records as part of the cultural stew that has influenced their flamboyant style of geek pop over the decades.
The best evidence is their 1987 cover of “Why Does the Sun Shine?” from the first in that series of records.
That track, Linnell says “has followed us like a golden ray of sunshine through our whole career pretty much.”
Nevertheless, in their newest release, an album for kids called Here Comes Science, They Might Be Giants present their correction to the song.
Old lyrics “The Sun is a mass of incandescent gas”
New lyrics “The Sun is a miasma of incadenscent plasma”
Below the fold: previous songs about science
Songs about science part III: geology
Songs about science part IV: GeekPop08
Songs about science part V: singing scientists
Songs about science part VI: ‘Don’t go messing with our telescope’
Songs about science VII: ‘It’s a long way from Amphioxus’
Songs about science part VIII: the astrobiology rap
Songs about science IX: Rollin’ to the Future
Songs about science X: drilling’s killer songs
Songs about science XI: Charlie Darwin
Songs about science XII: Shubin’s song
Songs about science XIII: ‘This stuff is far!’
Songs about Science XIV – Nano vs Fire
Songs about Science XV: You can’t fool the children of evolution
Songs about science XVI: return of the giant isopod
Songs about science XVII: gene regulators mount up
Songs about science XVIII: ‘What up Einstein, you as smart as people think you are.’
Songs about science XIX: back to our roots
Songs about science XX: Isotopes, isotopes, baby
Songs about science XXI: imitation is flattery, right?