Weird Studies

In this episode, Phil and JF are joined by Meredith Michael—musicologist, podcaster, and Weird Studies production assistant—for a conversation about animal songs. The phrase is intentionally slippery. Are we talking about songs about animals, or songs by animals? Both, as it turns out. Beginning with three very different human compositions—The Beatles’ “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey,” Hovhaness’s And God Created the Great Whales, and Björk’s “Human Behavior”—the hosts discuss the roles animals play in human music, mythology, and mind. Along the way, they touch on Pink Floyd, the Beatles' trip to India, heroin addiction, the indeterminacy of singing and screaming, the messiness of inter-species communication, the discovery of whale song, the problem of (not) projecting humanness onto animals, the Book of Genesis, and the porous boundary between the human and non-human worlds. All that (and more) for two of the songs! Phil’s pick will be explored in a forthcoming episode. Meredith Michael is a PhD candidate in Musicology at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. She is working on a dissertation about musical mythologies of outer space in the twentieth century. In her spare time she loves making art of all kinds, going for long walks, making friends with cats, and watching cartoons. Meredith hosts the Cosmophonia podcast with Gabriel Lubell. References Victor Shklovsky, “Art as Technique” [https://muratgermen.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/art-as-technique.pdf%E2%81%A0%20%C2%A0] Pink Floyd, Animals [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animals_(Pink_Floyd_album)%E2%81%A0%C2%A0] Neko Case, "People Got a Lotta Nerve" [%20%E2%81%A0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNiGgMLhGKQ&ab_channel=NekoCase-Topic%E2%81%A0%C2%A0] The Beatles, "Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and my Monkey" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everybody%27s_Got_Something_to_Hide_Except_Me_and_My_Monkey%E2%81%A0%C2%A0] Gavin Steingo, Interspecies Communication: Sound and Music beyond Humanity [https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780226831367%E2%81%A0%C2%A0] Little Richard, "Long Tall Sally" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Tall_Sally]  Alan Hovhaness, And God Created Great Whales [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_God_Created_Great_Whales%E2%81%A0%C2%A0] Roger Payne, Songs of the Humpback Whale [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_of_the_Humpback_Whale_(album)%E2%81%A0%C2%A0] Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus [https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780816614028%E2%81%A0%20%C2%A0] Olivier Messiaen, Quartet for the End of Time [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatuor_pour_la_fin_du_temps%E2%81%A0%C2%A0] Weird Studies, Episode 181 on “The X Files” [https://www.weirdstudies.com/181%E2%81%A0%20%C2%A0] Kate Altizer, Piano Dogs and Whale Theaters: Paranoid Relations and Affect with Nowhere to Go in the Study of Nonhuman Animals and Music  [%C2%A0%E2%81%A0https://proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fdissertations-theses%2Fpiano-dogs-whale-theaters-paranoid-relations%2Fdocview%2F2811468107%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D11620%E2%81%A0%20%C2%A0] David Rothenberg, Thousand Mile Songs [https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781949597264%E2%81%A0%20%C2%A0] Frans de Waal, Mama’s Last Hug [https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780393357837%E2%81%A0%20%C2%A0] King James Bible  Herman Melville, Moby Dick [https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780142437247%E2%81%A0%20%C2%A0] Leonard Nimoy (dir.), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092007/%E2%81%A0%20%C2%A0] RILM Abstracts of Music Literature [https://www.rilm.org/abstracts/%E2%81%A0%C2%A0] George Crumb, Vox Balaenae [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_Balaenae%E2%81%A0%20]  Terrence Malick (dir.), The Tree of Life [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478304/%E2%81%A0%20%C2%A0] Image by Navin75, via Wikimedia Commons [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Whale_breaching_in_Alaska_2016-07-04.jpg] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

How do you become religious? What is a conversion experience? Does it happen all at once or gradually? What's the point of religion, anyway? These are questions that JF (a Catholic) and Phil (a Zennist) have often been asked since starting Weird Studies, and in this episode they attempt some answers. Image: "Small Candle Flame [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Small_candle_flame.jpg]" by Le Priyavrat, via Wikimedia Commons Sign up to attend Shannon Taggart's Lily Dale symposium [https://www.shannontaggart.com/events/2025], July 24-26 REFERENCES Ross Douthat, Believe [%20%E2%81%A0https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780310367581]  Dogen, Shobogenzo [https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780824814014]   New Atheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism]  Weird Studies, Episode 99 on “Wild, Wild Country” [https://www.weirdstudies.com/99%E2%81%A0%20%C2%A0] William James, Varieties of Religious Experience   [https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780140390346] George Steiner, Real Presences [%E2%81%A0https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780226772349%E2%81%A0%20] Patrick Curry, Art and Enchantment [https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781032404677%E2%81%A0%20%C2%A0] Max Picard, The Flight from God [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/710529.The_Flight_from_God%E2%81%A0%C2%A0] Charles Taylor, A Secular Age [https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780674986916%E2%81%A0%20%C2%A0] James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games [https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781476731711%E2%81%A0%20%C2%A0] Richard Wagner, Ring Cycle [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Ring_des_Nibelungen%E2%81%A0%C2%A0] Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense [https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780231059831%E2%81%A0%C2%A0] Weird Studies, Episode 183 on “Siddhartha” [https://www.weirdstudies.com/183%E2%81%A0%C2%A0] Charles Sanders Peirce [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce%E2%81%A0%C2%A0], American philosopher Leonard Cohen, “Hallelujah [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLk4vdY28Q&list=RDYrLk4vdY28Q&start_radio=1]”   Our Known Friend, Meditations on the Tarot [https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781585421619%E2%81%A0%20%C2%A0] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Phil and JF first explored the mysteries of walking back in episode 59. That episode felt like a mere introduction—a tentative first step on a long and winding path. Now, 133 episodes later, they return to the theme as they prepare to lead a six-week course on the art of walking and its affinity with the Weird. This conversation touches on meditative walking, walking as dventure, psychogeography, wilderness mysticism, and more. References Weird Studies, Episode 59 on Walking [https://www.weirdstudies.com/59%E2%81%A0%C2%A0] Frédéric Gros, A Philosophy of Walking [https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781804290446%E2%81%A0%20%C2%A0] Kinhin [%20%E2%81%A0https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_meditation%E2%81%A0%C2%A0], walking meditation Henry David Thoreau, “Walking” [%20%E2%81%A0https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1022%E2%81%A0%20] Randonautica [https://www.randonautica.app], walking app Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens [https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781621389996%E2%81%A0%20%C2%A0] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

This conversation was originally recorded in August 2024 and released for our Patreon supporters. Weird Studies will be back with a new episode on June 25, 2025. What is cultural theory? How is philosophy "a preparation for death?" What sort of planet is Phil Ford from? These burning questions and more find answers in this free-wheeling conversation, originally exclusive to members of the Weird Studies Patreon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

This special release is a Patreon extra we’re making available to all listeners, in lieu of the official episode originally scheduled for today. As explained in the introduction, we will be back with a full episode later in the month. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this conversation about how art transforms experience, making the mundane mythic, calling images out of the flux of life, and shaping what is in us to think, feel, and live. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]