Sunday, November 20, 2005

26 Scientists Vol. 1: Anning - Malthus

Sounds like a boring book? No way!
It’s an über-cool new album by the band ARTICHOKE.

Featuring eclectic power-pop tunes, one written for a scientist for each letter of the alphabet, it’s brain-snappingly groovy.

Could these folks be the next ARCADE FIRE?



Here are the lyrics to a song about every palaeontologist’s favourite English marine reptile collector:
Mary Anning (1799 - 1847)
(written by Timothy Sellers)

do you know Mary Anning? born on a southern shore
her father Richard was a cabinetmaker
and Richard died too early and left the Annings poor
but lucky Mary Anning found an icthyosaur

by circa 1820 she ran a fossil store
she put the bones together for the collectors
and science was the province of men of noble birth
but I'd take Mary Anning over those stuffed white shirts
ancient life that sleeps as fossil

she was walking the cliffs on her own by the sea
she was wondering if there were shapes underneath
there were men with their cash but that's not what it took
she could read every line on the ground like a book
she assembled the bones of the past in cement
and she sold them in town for a couple of pence
and she showed all the men how the bones could connect
though at first some would scoff they would grow to respect

(repeat first verse)

how did you get in here? show me what you found dear
hello isn't that queer do you have any more?
Listen to an MP3 clip of the song HERE.



You can buy the CD from the band’s website, or through iTunes HERE.

I first heard this song on 'stonecoldbikini' hosted by Christine on WRUW FM 91.1, the radio station of Case Western Reserve University here in Cleveland.