Lincoln Nielsen - 2021

There's Gotta Be Something

For this project, I originally wanted to take a more serious tone with a totally different style of music. I wanted to go for something with a little edge, but as I started to write the lyrics and figure out the overall musicality of the project, I felt it necessary to switch to a sort of mock-musical route. An aspect of environmental awareness I feel that’s pretty important to me is overall awareness. I feel like something as simple as knowing the facts and passing those facts along helps the truth become widespread and not taken as a conspiracy or anything similar. The daunting task of creating a greener earth, reducing emissions, reducing governmental corruption, and the like are a bit much to take on for a single person. So in this song, the background is that the character singing is telling another character that it’s okay not to do everything, because the reality of the situation is that you can’t. But you can still do something, hence the title of the song, “There’s Gotta Be Something.” On that same note, a big focus I had in the song was also the fact that there are a small handful of individuals in a place of power that prevents us as a nation and as a worldwide community to progress towards a greener earth.

The opening lyrics I’m quite fond of personally, referring to “heat of the moment” and “spreading the flame,” is quite tongue in cheek and a double entendre, since it could be a simple statement of rising temperatures and climate change are resulting in fires, and also the overall message of the song, which is that you can be a fire that can spread the truth, and incite others to do the same.

I personally used to be a doubter, that climate change was just some confusing thing the government was either making up or embellishing to gain who knows what, I took climate change with a “not my problem” approach. Then I had an environment class my freshman year of college, where I saw the charts and I saw the science and was finally convinced that yes, this is a problem, and yes, something needs to be done about it. While not all of us may have the gumption of Greta Thornberg, hopefully people like her and others can continue to spread awareness, and more importantly, spread the truth.