95: Sounds of Action! The Stubborn Optimist's Playlist Vol. 1

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Massive Attack (likely Robert "3D" Del Naja — confirmed via the band's Eutopia EP featuring Christiana): You know, we're making music about climate change or oppression or, you know, a statement about war, but we kind of have this sense that you're not really having any direct effect on anything, and it's slightly futile. So we're always asking, what can we do? Will anyone ever take us seriously? You know, it's great that a reviewer might have noticed a lyric or a point or the fact that at a gig we've worked with a particular group of identities to try and promote a new idea or draw attention to an issue. But we always feel that it's the people like yourself that are actually affecting change systemically, getting right into the heart of it, are the people we look up to. And you're right, there is an enormous platform which mostly goes untapped. At the same time, it's a kind of strange balance because if you talk to your fans, the people at the gigs, or read the comments on social media particularly, we're continually bombarded with just shut up and make some music, shut up and make some music. And for years, I found that frustrating. And I thought, well, you know, I'm a citizen, we all need to talk about this and you always fall back to that really great sort of placard, there's no music on a dead planet, you know, you can draw from these brilliant placards you see at the demonstrations. But there's always that narrative in the background, we're just, you guys just shut up and do what you're here to do, which is entertain us. And I do get it sometimes, I do get that people came to us because they found something maybe, it provoked something emotional. You know, we're obviously quite well known for doing quite melancholy stuff. And I think personally, this EP we've done with you, Christiana, as a lead vocalist on it, is one of the most positive things we've done in years. You know, even though it's still some serious issues, it's great lyrics, great delivery. And some people are going, that's amazing. It was transformative. And other people are just like, I just want some music. And it's impossible to ever get it right for everybody. But what was really important here was recognizing that we just wanted to be the messengers at this point. You know, we didn't want to deliver it. We could be the delivery mechanism in which people with much deeper thoughts on this could actually send the messages out and transmit. Because it's a platform that if you didn't try to do, if you didn't try to utilize in a way that made any sort of, it could affect change, it would just seem like a colossal waste of time.

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Christiana Figueres: Before the COVID-19 crisis crashed into our world, governments were already facing the convergence of the climate crisis, the inequality crisis, and the oil price crisis. Now, the fourth. The global health crisis has not only converged on us as well, but has accelerated the impacts of the previous crisis, deepening economic disorder, and accentuating social suffering. In emerging from this, everyone can play their part, individually and collectively. The future we choose should be one of resilience, starting with aligning the food system to the four principles set out by the M.A.M. Availability, access, utilization, and stability. Energy is another sector that must be transformed. Well before COVID-19, fossil fuels were already showing signs of irreversible decline. They will recover somewhat from the historically low prices, but they will not recover their previous place as the engine of growth and development. We now know that their use is polluting our minds and loading our atmosphere, both at life-threatening levels. Financing the transition to a clean, healthy economy requires that businesses, investors, and citizens each play their part alongside governments. Governments can be excellent first movers, and their development finance institutions often are. There has never been a more critical role for them than now.

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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER — please verify (musician guest, part of "Stubborn Optimist Playlist" compilation; only announced as a group — "Massive Attack, AJR and many more" — not individually before each segment): The social fabric of our world, the health of democracies, and the well-being of people can either be destroyed or made stronger I think that art has an enormous role to play during a climate crisis.

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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER — please verify (musician guest, Stubborn Optimist Playlist): I think often it's the role of art and artists and musicians to try and create embodied experiences or things that can transcend mere regurgitation of facts and figures and connect people on a spiritual and emotional, physical and intellectual level to the reality of what's actually happening. I think people can often just be overwhelmed into a kind of state of apathy. And art and music, I think, can help snap people out of that state. Although I think art is not just there to help communicate the science or reflect other ideas. I think it is also fully capable of making meaningful and valid statements about the nature of reality itself. Like science, it's a method of communication and investigation and inquiry. I think there's also many places in which arts and sciences can collaborate and overlap. So I think arts and artists and musicians have a role not only to help communicate some of the issues that we're all facing, but also to do something about them in a practical and constructive way. This song is actually written by Benjamin Britten, but I decided to make a version of it. It just felt like a good way of shining a light on one of the aspects of this mass extinction which we're currently living through. And to attempt to try and make something that could engage people with this crisis, but without triggering some of the apathy and kind of shut down mechanisms that happens often if people get lectured to or just overwhelmed by facts and figures.

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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER — please verify (musician guest, Stubborn Optimist Playlist): Thank you.

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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER — please verify (musician guest, Stubborn Optimist Playlist): Bye-bye.

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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER — please verify (musician guest, part of "Stubborn Optimist Playlist" compilation; only announced as a group — "Massive Attack, AJR and many more" — not individually before each segment): It's been really strange to me how I feel like the more we have forgotten what music can offer us, the less, you know, we have gotten out of music. And I feel like music lately has, I'm missing that passion and that anger, you know, a directed anger, not blinded anger, that is no one any good, but the really clearly directed anger towards the wish to change something that is not good enough where we are today. And I feel like maybe the young kids haven't really learned it yet. And that's why we are so free to really express anger. And it's the perfect age also to express anger towards something that's unfair. And global warming is unfair, especially to us and our children, to all of us, you know. So it's such an unfair thing because we were just thrown into this world, a dying world. And now we are facing this incredible important, incredibly important change that we can either be, you know, all of us can be the generations that killed the planet, or we can be the generation that actually fixed it and, you know, saved it for our future children. And forever we will be a generation, like all of us, that saved the planet. And I would love to have that on our shoulders, wouldn't you too?

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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER — please verify (musician guest, Stubborn Optimist Playlist): As our friends at Music Declares Emergency say, there'll be no music on a dead planet anyway. I mean, all too often, especially in popular culture, it's commercial successes and profits which are driving artists' narratives. And there is definitely a benefit to the escapism that music allows. And I think we all need that. We've probably all had positive experiences from it. But right now, this is the most serious issue we've ever faced. And the next generation are going to be most affected. So as artists, we naturally role models and need to acknowledge the responsibility and use the influence that we've got conscientiously.

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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER — please verify (musician guest, Stubborn Optimist Playlist): Yeah, definitely. If you have influence over other people, then you really need to be conscious of it. But regardless of what you do, I think there's an individual responsibility that we all need to get this message in our heads. The first steps to realize how just out of sync with nature we've become in our society as it's progressed with technology and that we're so detached from the basics, like where we get our food from. We need to just take steps to reconnect with these as much as we can. And if we as artists and then the writers and hopefully the leaders do that too, then they will naturally impact those around them. And those who will listen to them. So yeah, I feel that we as artists need to learn and then act change ourselves first and then go from there.

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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER — please verify (musician guest, Stubborn Optimist Playlist): Yeah, man, we've created a couple of projects now using our music kind of as a call to fans. You know, and, you know, look, we're talking, well, we're rapping and raising awareness on subjects that are obviously negative. But we're counteracting this by offering some solutions and giving fans the opportunity to step up and take some action, which, you know, is key, I think, to actually do something about it. Like the track we're playing today, Too Many Teas, Not Enough Bees, managed to be managed to raise enough money to build new hives for 60,000 new bees. And we're in the middle of a campaign right now called Too Many Trees, where we're currently raising money to plant oak trees here in the UK. And we're going to go and plant a forest with our fans. Actually, on the day they're going to come with us and plant the trees themselves. So we're not only building community and getting that positive energy going, but hopefully doing some good for the planet along the way.

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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER — please verify (musician guest, Stubborn Optimist Playlist): Leave those little bees alone, we need them to get the crops and the plants full grown. Yeah, leave the habitat to be, cos if we save the bees we save the world and that's buzzing, buzzing.

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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER — please verify (musician guest, Stubborn Optimist Playlist): People see bees as scary little creatures, arm of a sting that'll make you scream Jesus. And if you're allergic they'll make you see Jesus or Allerod, it's nothing that depends on your thesis. But anyway, the bees don't ever want to hurt you, these fuzzy little fellas are just in it for the virtue, We serve in the hive, feeding the little dudes, all stick together way much better than we ever do. And what do humans do? Nick all their food. Yeah, that honey, that sweet, sweet oo.

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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER — please verify (musician guest, Stubborn Optimist Playlist): I love it on my porridge, that sweet, sweet goo.

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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER — please verify (musician guest, Stubborn Optimist Playlist): Not just sugary corn, the AIDS colony collapse. Yeah, monoculture farming has a huge impact, so the bees don't get what they need to fight back against mites. Pathogens, diseases, bad, and don't start on climate change, that's a whole other rap.

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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER — please verify (musician guest, Stubborn Optimist Playlist): So what can you do?

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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER — please verify (musician guest, Stubborn Optimist Playlist): I think everybody's very aware when they're being preached to in a song. And so I think it really needs to be, like, let me use an example, Burn the House Down, our song. We couldn't write a song saying, here's what's wrong with the world. It needed to be a personal thing. Here's how I'm affected. And it ended up being a song about writing a political song. Like, if I write this political song, will they allow me to sing it on Ellen or whatever? You know? And so, yeah, go ahead, Jeff. You know, there are those people in the world that are those tenacious, will lead the pack, those kind of people. But there are a lot of people that are very unsure and don't really know. And to try to appeal to those people is very smart, because you can scroll through your Twitter feed all day and see, this is what we need to do, this is what we need to do. But a lot of people aren't super educated. Like me, for instance, I'm not, I don't know 100% of the answers. I don't know 100% what to do. But if you can relate and try to make people feel it on that level of a little bit of insecurity and unsureness, maybe they'll start to actually listen and do their own research and say, okay, this is actually really important to me. So it's really just about connecting to the fans who have the exact same mindset as you. So like Ryan said, you have to be subtle about it and not preach. It's funny, a lot of my work in the sustainability space came from this idea, seeing how you get fans involved and excited about something because so much of the climate movement has been about this fear of the future and this doom and gloom approach. But when I look at the music industry where I spend so much of my time, it's all about excitement and how do you build excitement one person at a time to get them involved? And so a lot of the work that I've done is taking things that we learned from the music industry and applying them to activism specifically around climate. You know, you get somebody excited and then they follow you on Twitter or they stream a song and then they buy an album, they buy a ticket to a show, they follow you around the world. It's that ladder of getting people engaged in something. And a lot of my work is how do we take that and apply that to things like climate. This is Burn the House Down.