Always searching for science-art-music combinations. Especially ones that focus on some aspect of science I work on, like microbes. And, well, though this recording is less than ideal, and you need to wait a minute and a half or so, once you get to the song it is worth it.
The song is “The Amoeba Hop” and the singer is the brilliant Christine Lavin.
I have had this song in my head on and off for years and wanted to post about it for a while. I finally remembered to Google it tonight after reading a tweet about combining music and biology. I used to listen to Lavin all the time in college and even went to a show of hers in 1989 in Ft. Collins, CO with my brother and my friend Saul Jacobson. As a side note – we saw Lavin at some music hall type of place the the night after seeing Killdozer at a VFW post. As a second side note – the Killdozer show was crazy (and I even found someone else who wrote about it here).
Anyway – not only did I find the video posted above but I discovered she wrote a book in 2002 based on the song – and the book even got a review in the New York Times. Gonna probably have to get that book at some point …
Jonathan Eisen's Lab 