Songwriting as Expression of Cultural Ecosystem Services
Paper presented as part of a two-part performance panel: Waterlines, Melody Lines, and the Environmental Imagination: Mobilizing Community through Music; part of The International Environmental Communication Association’s 15th Biennial Conference on Communication & Environment (June 17–21, 2019 at the University of British Columbia).
Introduction
Music not only connects people across cultures, time, and space (Levinson, 2015), but also can help individuals connect to what Cantrill and Senecah (2001) call a sense of self-in-place. Music, through particular songs, can influence memory, perceptions, and attitudes toward environmental issues (University of Wisconsin ERC, 2009) by connecting the hybrid identities of people and places (Hudson, 2006) to wider social-ecological concerns.
In the performing songwriter tradition of American roots music, self-mythologizing can help activate the environmental imagination (Pedelty, 2012), instigating connections of self and community. Roll Roll Roll, the song submitted here, invokes the singer’s life and relation to the Mississippi River with its myriad flows of connection as a material reality and dynamic metaphor for living well. Through it, we can examine confluences of ecocultural identity (Milstein & Castro-Sotomayor, 2020) and the enduring power of the Mississippi River and other rivers as sources of inspiration for artists of all stripes. This perspective aligns with efforts to include and further elaborate relational values via pluralistic valuation (Himes & Muraca, 2018) across paradigms of conservation biology and environmental art through the framework of categorization labeled cultural ecosystem services (Costanza, et al. 1997; Costanza et al., 2017) or nature’s contribution to people (Diaz et al., 2018).
The protean Mississippi (Raban, 1981) is central as a point of inspiration for songwriters and other story artists of the Driftless Area, a locale of unique ecological and geological character (Meine & Keeley, 2018) spanning four states and surrounding the Upper Mississippi National Wildlife and Fish Refuge (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, 2018). This song is part of an emerging case study investigating how songwriters and others in the creative class (Florida, 2012) draw inspiration from many sources, including relational integration with ecological systems as a means to situate sense of self-in-place in their creative work and to engage listeners in critical reflection through the composition and performance of ecomusical works.
In a world of post-normal science (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1994), a call for new stories or narratives (Mitchell, 2018; Kingsnorth, 2017) is asking to reconnect contemporary life with its ecological constraints by reducing the perceived human-nature divide and decentering hegemonic monetary valuation to include other values, including the wellbeing of human and non-human nature. Performing songwriters are one point of intersection for expressing value using an enriched and emerging common language (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1994) from a perspective of pluralistic relational values (Himes & Muraca, 2018; Arias-Arévalo, Gómez-Baggethun, Martín-López, Pérez-Rincón, 2018) that can help facilitate transitions to a sustainable 21st century. Inventive language and stories or songs open to multiple perspectives can help challenge ‘business as usual’ perspectives, including the often-assumed human-nature dichotomy and the easy allure of commodification, by expanding valuation into a pluralism of context specific perspectives (Diaz et al. 2018) connected across multiple levels of abstraction (Spartz, 2018).
Start Where You Are
My interest in and understanding of songwriting as environmental communication is derived from 20 years of experience as a songwriting aficionado and avocation as a performing songwriter. Songwriting in the vein of which I have experience offers a point of reflection or mirror for myself, for listeners, and possibly other composers and performers “to see ourselves captured, contained, and reconfigured” (Brackett, 2008, p. ix) in relation to the actually-existing world as well as the ecological imaginary. This work can be, through the efforts of songwriters and other artists, a point of critical reflection in the cosmic mirror (Trungpa, 1988) for various audiences to consider their own relations of care and concern (or not) with/in the ecological systems supporting all planetary life forms.
There is a river of river songs: Big River, Proud Mary, Take Me to The River, Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, Old Man River, Water is Wide, and many more (Green, 1995). Does the world need any more songs like these? One might agree with the bard of American songwriting himself, Bob Dylan, in answering simply: No. The world probably has enough songs. More than any one person could ever consume. Dylan qualifies his remark, however, by suggesting that while the world may not need any more songs, there is value in someone who “comes along with a pure heart and has something to say.” That, he says, is “a different story” (Dylan, 1991, p. 73). Songwriters may be “particularly vulnerable prey for many diseases of the spirit” due to their “finely tuned emotional nature,” says Jimmy Webb (1998, pp. 369–370) but for those who possess the pure heart of Dylan’s musing, offering one’s song up to the world at large is a bold step and a very personal thing (Brown, 1998).
I take this very personal thing and attempt to climb a few rungs up the ladder of abstraction to gain (and offer) some perspective on songwriting as environmental communication. I begin as a skeptic, however. Do environmental songs really even matter very much in an informational environment so saturated with content? To whom might such songs matter, if at all, and in what social-ecological contexts might their resonance have relevance? Distinctions of geographic scale immediately emerge — from local to global to local again — in an always-emerging and dynamic interplay of social-ecological relations.
The main point is not to elevate any particular song, including Roll Roll Roll, but to use this one song as an example of how inspiration from the more-than-human world emerges in a songwriting context and how I attempt to invoke relational values (in the final verse). Discussion as such will take part in the framework of what has been labeled cultural ecosystem services — those benefits from ecological systems derived from the abundance of nature’s gifts — and the need for care and concern in a time of unprecedented anthropogenic negative ecological feedback loops.
Cultural Ecosystem Services and Pluralistic Valuation
All life derives value from healthy planetary ecosystems. The ways in which people notice, process, and express those values vary widely, as seen in the wide variety of nature-based art forms across time and space. Cultural ecosystem services are one way of expressing this category of benefits derived from non-human nature. Relative to the material benefits categorized as provisioning and regulating ecosystem services, cultural ecosystem services involve intangible characteristics or nonmaterial benefits obtained “from ecosystems through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, and aesthetic experiences” (Sarukhán & Whyte, 2005; Milcu et al. 2013). Since the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (Sarukhán & Whyte, 2005), the distinction of cultural ecosystem services has morphed into what Díaz et al. (2018) describe as “all the contributions, both positive and negative, of living nature (diversity of organisms, ecosystems, and their associated ecological and evolutionary processes) to people’s quality of life” (p. 270).
Pascual et al. (2017) also write about nature’s contributions to people and other life, but the ecosystem services framework generally only sees “value” from an anthropocentric view — acknowledged only if something is valuable to people. This “conduit between nature and a good quality of life” (Pascual et al., 2017, p. 9) is examined from a generalizing perspective, typical of standard economics and the natural sciences, as well as a context-specific perspective, typical of work that integrates local and Indigenous knowledge (i.e. traditional ecological knowledge) into valuation frameworks. The intentional inclusion of pluralistic valuation practices — particularly those that make room for Indigenous worldviews, broadly construed — is welcome in this emerging paradigm shift.
Cultural ecosystem services or nature’s contributions to people (and other life) is contested in part because of the eclectic nature of the concepts involved and the diversity of valuation methods used across distinct disciplinary paradigms. Such contestations are useful and productive for moving beyond typical Western (e.g. technoscientific, rational, linear) perspectives and valuations.
Most of what is valued via neoclassical economists are those aspects most easily quantified. As Milcu et al. (2013) suggest, perpetuating the tradition of monetary valuation as the sole value orientation further deepens “the gap between counting that which matters to people and that which is easy to measure.” Evaluating some ecological systems through the lens of monetary valuation can be useful for informing policy decisions (Biggs, Schlüter & Schoon, 2015), for example, but “a large variety of ecosystem services cannot be quantified economically” (p. 15), including some of those “services” that support the full flourishing of life, liberty, and pursuits of wellbeing. Those elements not suited to monetary valuation remain valuable in many social-ecological circumstances as those elements of the more-than-human world “least amenable to quantification in monetary terms may have very large impacts on human well- being through their impacts people’s sense of identity, purpose in life and psychological well-being” (Biggs, Schlüter & Schoon, 2015, p. 15).
Questions immediately emerge in juxtaposing frameworks from the natural sciences with humanistic endeavors such as songwriting: At what social and geographic scales do songs have value? To whom? Why and how is value assessed? Responding to the depth and breadth of these questions is beyond the scope of this particular project but it is my hope that useful questions, concerns, and critiques emerge from this paradigmatic intersection and will be explored iteratively in future work.
It is incredibly unlikely that any given “environmental” song will have an impact on mass society. As such, valuations are relative within and across contexts of existing relationships between particular musical genres or occasions of music and a wide range of listeners, composers and performers (Levinson, 2015). It is my suspicion that “environmental” songs and songwriting may be most impactful at the personal community level, with communities here varying across physical and psychological proximity to actually-existing ecological problems or solutions salient to various communities globally. In this sense, what we each perceive and attend to IS our world. If a song can change one’s perspective, it changes the world.
Relative to the song submitted here, discussed below, it was not written as an “environmental” song but was adjusted lyrically upon my introduction to cultural ecosystem services, relational values, and pluralistic valuation. This adjustment (in the song) attempts to reflect not only my personal experience but also my desire as the singer/songwriter to have listeners consider their own relationship(s) to the river (any river, really) and how listeners might want to “tell the children” about what they have done to “help what that river does for you.”
Roll, Roll, Roll
The particular song under examination here, Roll Roll Roll, fits within a relatively narrow though very common tradition of songwriting in American roots music. A fellow performer at an open jam once described Roll Roll Roll after hearing it for the first time as sounding like a combination of Johnny Cash and John Fogerty. This struck me as an apt description. To be clear, I am not suggesting that this song is on par with Big River or Proud Mary (or any other Cash or Fogerty composition) or even the most relevant to a discussion of songwriting as environmental communication.
Roll Roll Roll was not written as an academic exercise, unlike past work such as the song Clean Boats, Clean Waters which has been used by Minnesota Sea Grant, among others, to raise awareness and prevent the spread of aquatic invasive species. Truth be told, Roll Roll Roll was written in the musical shadow of Texas troubadour Dale Watson with the intent of having a very simple song (i.e. two chords, A and E) tell a personal story, using the river as a metaphor for life’s flow of change. As such, Roll Roll Roll offers a concrete example of one genre-specific song written with the intention of offering a point of reflection for people’s connections to place, in this case the Upper Mississippi River valley where I was born and raised.
Roll Roll Roll
I grew up on that river, climbed up that old hill
People said “Son, you don’t know. But someday you will.”
Life down on the river is tough as it is sweet
People down that river are some of the best you’ll ever meet.Roll roll roll, roll right down that stream
Roll roll roll, living your own dream
Roll roll roll, just like that paddle wheel
Roll roll roll, the good life is what you feelAs you walk across this country, from the desert to the sea
One thing that you’ll find is love will set you free
And as you go out wandering, be just who you are
It takes a lot of courage but that will take you far, as you…Roll roll roll, roll right down that stream
Roll roll roll, living your own dream
Roll roll roll, spinning like a spinning wheel
Roll roll roll, the good life is what you feelDo you hear what I’m saying? Is it as clear as mud?
Tend to that river, it’s your own flesh and blood
And you can tell the children and the childrens’ children, too
All that you’ve done to help what that river does for you, as we…Roll roll roll, roll right down that stream
Roll roll roll, living your own dream
Roll roll roll, like a wheel within a wheel
Roll roll roll, the good life is what you feel© James Travis Spartz 2018
It is not until the last verse where I intentionally attempted to include indications of relational valuation, intergenerational responsibility (including river as kin), and care and concern for the supportive role river ecosystems play in the mutual flourishing of complex social-ecological systems. Are those topics evident to the casual listener, say, in a dancehall on a Saturday night? Possible, but unlikely. Concert venues where socialization and, often, some degree of inebriation are among the primary goals for attendees don’t generally make for good venues to convey environmental messages (Pedelty, 2012). Such indicators do offer the opportunity for relational considerations to emerge, particularly if the performer points out such relational qualities in some way. Even more so in a “listening room” rather than a club or dancehall.
In this sense, I can relate to Pedelty’s (2012) collaborator, Craig Minowa of the Minnesota ensemble Cloud Cult, in searching for alternative musical themes to help listeners get “in touch with their souls” (p. 123) within the community context of any given musical occasion. Minowa speaks of a sacredness in the creative process and taking an approach to composition and performance as a type of ritual or ceremony, reminiscent of the sacred ecology of Berkes (2018). Minowa allows the reverberations between musical occasions and those in attendance to “communicate with each other on levels beyond talk” and to “get in touch with deeper elements of the universe” in a bid to connect with others in the phenomenal world as “an essential part of building true sustainability and community” (Pedelty, 2012, p. 125).
Pedelty (2012) suggests that “fewer and fewer lyrics refer to local places, regions, and natural features” (p. 127) which may be true, though does bring to mind the assertion by Tom Waits (2002) that “all songs should have weather in them. Names of towns and streets, and they should have a couple of sailors. I think those are just song prerequisites” (p. 365). Explicit references to specific environments are not necessary for a song to “be environmental,” says Pedelty (2012), “but one of the most important ways for music to do environmental work is to connect listeners to the places where they live” (p. 127).
This is what I was trying to do with Roll Roll Roll: foregrounding explicit connections through my own story. In doing so, I hope that listeners will consider their own connections to the river in their own identity formation; how they may (or may not) tend to those ecological kinship ties, and consider the stories they may tell future generations about those relations. Recognizing reciprocal relations between how the river affords human and non-human nature a variety of benefits, and how people may act in relation to rivers and other non-human nature, can help build peoples’ ecocultural identities in a positive way. This can promote pro-environmental attitudes through stronger intergenerational ties among social actors, including non-human nature as part of those social worlds.
Recapitulation and Summary
Music has been one of the constants across all human cultures. Inspiration for, from, and to relational qualities connecting (rather than separating) humans to elemental phenomena such as air, water, fellow animals, and other ecological features has been part of a co-productive effort to understand, inspire, appreciate, and celebrate the ecomusical imagination. Songs offer particular opportunities for reflection in the mirror of complex social-ecological systems (i.e. nature and humans’ role within it) and for communicating value across paradigms of valuation and levels of abstraction. Lyrically and musically, songs can evoke place connections and other relational abstractions brought forth by and through collective and individual ecological imaginaries.
One may not go to “nature” to write a song but may very well draw upon such inspiration as a co-productive source — not unlike a DJ spinning mixes, the ecocultural songwriter cues up and integrates the ecological imagination with the musical imagination. Such co-production can help express the inexpressible — a sense of awe or wonder — that aligns with the songwriter’s own emergent ecocultural identity and with the hopes that a song or album or performance may likewise facilitate such relational connection for listeners.
In this research essay, I have tried to introduce and connect language and ideas from disparate paradigms as examples of how ecomusical songwriting can be dynamic, emergent, and pluralistic examples of what natural scientists term cultural ecosystem services or nature’s contributions to people.
Cultural ecosystem services is a way of describing benefits for mutual flourishing derived from ecological systems. These are, in short, a new way of describing very old and foundational relationships. Nature’s contributions to people (IPBES, 2016; Diaz et al. 2018) moves this description further in interdisciplinary directions, despite its titular anthropocentrism, by making explicit efforts to include locally relevant and Indigenous knowledge categories alongside established and widely accepted Western science categorizations useful in regionalized ecosystem assessments (Diaz et al. 2018).
Songwriting that communicates or facilitates communication of or about ecological care and concern, hazards, or other relationships between human and non-human nature can facilitate learning and education, psychological and lived experiences, and identity vis a vis sense of place, belonging, rootedness, and connectedness to various entities of the living world (Diaz et al. 2018).
The value of any song or other occasion of music making can be assessed within the context of exchange between composers, performers and listeners. Valuations as such may vary across individuals and across spatial and temporal contexts yet also have the power to integrate or connect people across time and space through relational qualities inherent in all cultures. The same such relational qualities can be used to challenge hegemonic assumptions about anthropocentric economic valuations by asserting the valuation of nonmaterial and intangible qualities that are central to culturally relative ways of good living.
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