Image by Pixabay

Terrestrial Otherness: Songs About Insects

In conjunction with my recent FPR article “Terrestrial Otherness,” this week on A Symposium of Popular Songs, we’ll be listening to music honoring the noble six-legged creatures whose world we share, inspired…

In conjunction with my recent FPR article “Terrestrial Otherness,” this week on A Symposium of Popular Songs, we’ll be listening to music honoring the noble six-legged creatures whose world we share, inspired by Jean-Henri Fabre’s Souvenirs entomologiques. Send me your song recommendations at symposiumofsongs@gmail.com!

  • 0:00

    Tom Petty, “Honey Bee” (Wildflowers, 1994)

  • 6:00

    Laura Cantrell, “Bees” (Humming by the Flowered Vine, 2005)

  • 12:38

    Jean-Henri Fabre, Fabre’s Book of Insects

  • 17:32

    Rhett Miller and Rachael Yamagata, “Fireflies” (The Believer, 2006)

  • 21:36

    Jean-Henri Fabre, Fabre’s Book of Insects

  • 24:58

    Sufjan Stevens, “The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!” (Illinois, 2005)

  • 31:45

    Chaka Khan, “Papillon (Hot Butterfly)” (Naughty, 1980)

  • 35:32

    Joanna Newsom, “Cosmia” (Ys, 2006)

  • 43:34

    Jean-Henri Fabre, Fabre’s Book of Insects

  • 46:11

    Phil Madeira, “Cricket” (Crickets, 2019)

  • 50:27

    Jean-Henri Fabre, Fabre’s Book of Insects

  • 51:32

    Dave Matthews Band, “Ants Marching” (Under the Table and Dreaming, 1994)

  • 56:38

    Andy Zipf, “Hey There Dragonfly” (How to Make a Paper Airplane, 2022)

Enjoying what you’re reading?

Support FPR’s print journal and selection of books.
Subscribe
A stack of three Local Culture journals and the book 'Localism in the Mass Age'

Michial Farmer

Michial Farmer is a poet, essayist, and history teacher. He is the author of Imagination and Idealism in John Updike’s Fiction (Camden House, 2017) and the translator of Gabriel Marcel’s Thirst (Cluny, 2021). He lives in Atlanta.

Leave the first comment