By Tom Veltre | May 24, 2013 at 02:13 PM EDT | No Comments
There’s a sign in the “exit garden” of JungleWorld at the Bronx Zoo with a quote from a speech by Baba Dioum that is often repeated around conservation organizations:
In the end,
We only conserve what we love,
We only love what we understand, and
We only understand what we are taught.
We only conserve what we love,
We only love what we understand, and
We only understand what we are taught.
But is that the way it really works? Does teaching really lead to understanding, and understanding really necessary for love? Or can it work the other way around? Can we love something first, then want to learn about it, and eventually see the need to conserve it?
A few years ago I designed a course for Fordham University titled “P.R. for the Planet” in which we examined a number of different environmental campaigns - both historical and current – culminating with each student designing their own model campaign. We found that every campaign could be placed somewhere on the spectrum from fact–heavy discourse to image-driven iconography.
Some people in the conservation field (including many I have worked with) appear to be in love with facts. They seem to base their work on the idea if one throws enough facts at the public, understanding will turn into love and then into conservation action.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are those conservation campaigns that eschewed facts and relied on blatant emotional appeals – this “Keep America Beautiful” from 1971 is a classic example.
The reliance on such heavy-handed and kitsch imagery seems so out dated today. And yet, 42 years later, that tear stained cheek is far more resonant with Americans of my generation than a dozen Earth Day manifestos.
An old saying in Media Ecology asserts that “words are propositional, pictures are presentational,” meaning that one can argue with a campaign stated in words, but one cannot “argue” with a picture - a picture simply “is”. One can “agree” with a statement – and one “resonates” with an image.
And when we say the word “resonate” nothing else in the history of conservation campaigns ever “resonated” as much with the general public at these haunting sounds – the song of the Humpback Whale.
Of all the media we discussed, few of my students at Fordham would have ever identified an LP record of animal noises (without a single spoken word!) as one of the most effective consciousness-raising tools ever employed in a conservation effort.
But I am convinced that it is the complete lack of “information” that was the key to the success of this awareness campaign.
Dr. Roger Payne, (a research fellow at the New York Zoological Society in the 1960’s and 70’s), is credited with the “discovery” of these songs. In his youth, Roger had been an avid ‘cello playing student musician, and his wife Katy was a double major in music and biology as an undergraduate. Together they recorded these songs off Bermuda from 1967-69.
As scientists they recognized these sophisticated vocalizations as worthy of intensive study and analysis. As musicians, they responded in a profound and visceral way to the pure esthetic experience of these “other worldly” sounds.
In 1970, Roger became a self-appointed impresario who promoted these “divas of the deep sea.” He was convinced that if everyone could just experience the power of these songs, that attitudes about whales would be changed. He used any avenue he could find to get the songs in front of the public – from calling up old summer camp chums who might get them record deals, to (in his own words) “standing outside the Delacorte Theater in Central Park like some stage-door Johnny, clutching my tape recorder and headphones, hoping for a chance to meet Judy Collins and play the songs for her...”.
This charmingly naive effort resulted in one of the most compelling “memes” in conservation.
Within months the Judy Collins song, (and the original full length Humpback Whale album) seemed to be everywhere.
Today we would say that the whales had “gone viral.”
Dr. Payne was tireless in his evangelical efforts on behalf of his whales, seeking out every opportunity to expose the American public to their haunting sounds. He appeared on TV everywhere from the Today Show with Hugh Downs to the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. A single, released as an EvaTone Sound Sheet (in the January 1979 issue of National Geographic) became not only the largest animal sounds record of all time, but was the largest single production run OF ANY RECORD IN THE HISTORY OF THE RECORD BUSINESS to that date!
It’s hard to say exactly why this record took off. Clearly, it was a product of the right effort at the right moment in popular culture. Here are a few speculations on what may have contributed to the success:
In the final analysis, I believe the whale songs had such a remarkable impact on the public because they were presented as “pure music” – no narration, no accompanying video. The instructions on the liner notes even encouraged listening with headphones for a more complete immersion in the “otherworldly-ness” of the soundscape.
As musicians, Roger and Katy had the courage to let the whales music stand on its own as a powerful and enigmatic esthetic experience – not an information filled educational one. True, the original issue of the album was accompanied by a handsomely illustrated 36 page booklet (printed in both English and Japanese) on the Payne’s research and global whale conservation issues, but the core experience – the whale songs themselves – are presented “a capella” as it were.
Freed from the burden of any over-arching narrative, the audience was open to participate in their own interpretation of these abstract songs – to bring more of themselves into the experience. In a sense, whale songs are what Marshall McLuhan would call a “cool” medium, requiring more participation on the part of the audience, like Television or Jazz.
TV... Cool ... Jazz ? ... Maybe the association with marijuana is not as far-fetched as I thought.
Today we would say that the whales had “gone viral.”
Dr. Payne was tireless in his evangelical efforts on behalf of his whales, seeking out every opportunity to expose the American public to their haunting sounds. He appeared on TV everywhere from the Today Show with Hugh Downs to the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. A single, released as an EvaTone Sound Sheet (in the January 1979 issue of National Geographic) became not only the largest animal sounds record of all time, but was the largest single production run OF ANY RECORD IN THE HISTORY OF THE RECORD BUSINESS to that date!
It’s hard to say exactly why this record took off. Clearly, it was a product of the right effort at the right moment in popular culture. Here are a few speculations on what may have contributed to the success:
- In 1970 “folksingers” like Collins were still able to chart with “singles” on the radio.
- High-fidelity FM stations had recently begun to eclipse AM stations in popularity (can you ever imagine listening to a whale song on a squawky little AM transistor radio?)
- Increased use of marijuana by the general public. (This last point was suggested to me years ago by John McKew, who was the business manager for the NYZS who negotiated the original record contracts in 1970, and was still working there when I started there in the 1980's. He was convinced that an article in Psychology Today on the health benefits of meditating to the sound of whale songs had sparked an entire generation to “get high and groove on the whales” ... Frankly, who am I to say he’s wrong?)
In the final analysis, I believe the whale songs had such a remarkable impact on the public because they were presented as “pure music” – no narration, no accompanying video. The instructions on the liner notes even encouraged listening with headphones for a more complete immersion in the “otherworldly-ness” of the soundscape.
As musicians, Roger and Katy had the courage to let the whales music stand on its own as a powerful and enigmatic esthetic experience – not an information filled educational one. True, the original issue of the album was accompanied by a handsomely illustrated 36 page booklet (printed in both English and Japanese) on the Payne’s research and global whale conservation issues, but the core experience – the whale songs themselves – are presented “a capella” as it were.
Freed from the burden of any over-arching narrative, the audience was open to participate in their own interpretation of these abstract songs – to bring more of themselves into the experience. In a sense, whale songs are what Marshall McLuhan would call a “cool” medium, requiring more participation on the part of the audience, like Television or Jazz.
TV... Cool ... Jazz ? ... Maybe the association with marijuana is not as far-fetched as I thought.
