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Have climate songs lost their fighting spirit?

In the 1970s, pop artists sang about the environment as a cause they could win. Today, the songs are more about anxiety and powerlessness.

"‘Eyes Wide Open’ by Gotye feels like an anthem. It’s got loads of energy. But the lyrics don’t really speak of much of a struggle, says Håvard Haugland Bamle, who has researched climate songs. Here is the Australian artist Gotye on stage in Montreal."
Walter Norman Wehus COMMUNICATIONS ADVISER
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"The old songs from the 70s, 80s and 90s were full of fighting spirit. Back then, the idea was that we had to do something, we had to solve the problems", says Håvard Haugland Bamle.

He is conducting research into song lyrics and the environmental crisis at the University of Agder. As part of his work on his PhD, he has catalogued and analysed songs about climate and the environment from the 1950s to the present day.

As we move further into the 2000s, the songs start to change. Bamle highlights two major hits: Eyes Wide Open by the Australian artist Gotye and Feels Like Summer by the American rapper Childish Gambino.

"Eyes Wide Open feels like an anthem. It’s got loads of drive. But in the lyrics, there isn’t much of a fight. It’s more like: we’re heading over the cliff, and that’s just the way it is", says Bamle about the Gotye track.

Feels Like Summer can also be described as an apathetic song, he believes.

“It observes the problem of climate change rather than actually taking up the fight to solve anything,” says Bamle.

Pop and the environment

Håvard Haugland Bamle recently defended his doctoral thesis at UiA on how pop singers address the environmental and climate crisis.

Songs about nature and natural disasters are nothing new. Bamle points out that the theme can be found, amongst other places, in 18th-century ballads. But the modern environmental song is inextricably linked to the environmental movement, and it emerged at the same time as pop music itself.

Pete Seeger wrote what is considered to be the first modern climate song, Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, in 1955. Eight years later, Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring was to mark the true beginning of the modern environmental movement.

In 1969, two environmental disasters attracted enormous attention in the USA. A major oil spill struck Santa Barbara in California, and the polluted Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire.

The following year, Earth Day was celebrated for the first time. The Nixon administration responded with a series of environmental measures, including the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Clean Air Act.

"Richard Nixon remains the US president who has done the most for the environment", says Bamle.

That same year saw a wave of environmental songs from some of the very biggest artists. Joni Mitchell released Big Yellow Taxi. The Beach Boys sang about polluted water in Don’t Go Near the Water and Marvin Gaye released the lament Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology).

The environment and injustice

In the 1970s and 80s, the environmental cause became intertwined with other struggles.

"For the artists, climate and the environment were very tangible issues. They were linked to social inequality, civil rights and the colonial exploitation of the Third World," says Bamle.

A good example is Beds Are Burning by Midnight Oil from 1987. The song demands that Australia’s Indigenous peoples be given back control over their own land. The destruction of nature and the abuses against the Aboriginal people are two sides of the same coin.

In the 1990s, however, something changed. Michael Jackson’s Earth Song and Mos Def’s New World Water criticise the system and global inequality. But they do not call on listeners to take collective action.

– ‘These songs don’t necessarily have that “come on, let’s solve this problem together” attitude,’ says Bamle.

The 1990s were otherwise a decade characterised by optimism. The crisis concerning the ozone layer had, in practice, been resolved through the Montreal Protocol. The Cold War was over.

At the same time, global warming was becoming known to an ever-increasing number of people.

We are all complicit

“The climate crisis differs from previous environmental issues in that no one is exempt. Everything we do in the modern world is based on fossil fuels,” says Bamle.

This is also reflected in the songs. After the year 2000, climate became a more all-encompassing and existential theme, including in pop music.

"Western pop is becoming more self-reflective. Artists increasingly see themselves as part of the problem, rather than pointing the finger at an external adversary", says the researcher.

There are two recurring themes in song lyrics about the environment. One is the pastoral, which is about peaceful nature. The other is the apocalypse, that is, the foretold doom.

In climate songs, these themes become more serious and more intense.

The Norwegian artist Moddi is a good example. Bamle has written a separate article about his 2013 album Kæm va du?.

"The song Noens ark is a doomsday prophecy. It is a warning that we are heading towards a new deluge that will sweep over us and destroy the world as we know it", says Bamle.

It is a warning that we can turn things around, but only if we first realise where we are heading.

The music conveys the theme

“It’s not a strategic move to convey political messages in pop music,” says Bamle.

Record labels may feel that taking a clear stance does not build the artist’s brand in the right way. Some resolve this outside the music itself. The rapper Pitbull makes perfectly ordinary party pop, but named two of his albums *Global Warming* and *Climate Change*.

Others let the theme be embedded in the music itself. In another chapter of his PhD thesis, Bamle has analysed the album Plastic Beach by Gorillaz.

“The album contains many musical strategies that ensure the theme keeps returning in new forms,” he says.

To grasp this, you have to listen just as carefully as you read.

After the pandemic, there were fewer climate songs. Bamle nevertheless believes that artists in general remain committed to the environmental cause.

“It’s not as simple as saying you’ve given up. Because then you might not have bothered to sing songs about it at all,” he says.

Reference:

Håvard Haugland Bamle: «… and I never really knew what to do». Environmental Song Lyrics in a Time of Ecological Crisis. Doctoral thesis, University of Agder, 2026.

Five climate songs: A chronology

1. Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi (1970) 

Mitchell drew inspiration from Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring, and urges people to let nature flourish on its own terms. Here, nature is portrayed as a victim of human transgressions.

2. Midnight Oil - Beds Are Burning (1987) 

The song stems from a time when a close link was seen between environmental justice and social inequality. It addresses both the industrialisation of the natural landscape and the struggle for Aboriginal rights in Australia.

3. Michael Jackson - Earth Song (1995) 

A lament for the earth, the animals that live there, and Africans in particular. The song does not, however, contain any specific calls to action, but merely draws attention to what is in the process of being lost.

4. Gotye - Eyes Wide Open (2011) 

A darker, more prophetic twist on the lament. We have been warned, and solutions have been ignored. Now all hope is lost. At least, that is what the song says. The rhythmic drive of the song might, at best, inspire a completely opposite impulse to take action to avert disaster.

5. Aurora – The Seed (2019) 

The song reminds us of what we are in the process of losing as we continue to put a strain on the planet. The seed may well be the youth climate movement of the 2010s, which has not yet come into full bloom.

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