The Secret Life Of Plants Lyrics: I can't conceive the nucleus of all / Begins inside a tiny seed / And what we see as insignificant / Provides the purest air we breathe / But who am I to doubt. Mar 11, 2008 21 videos Play all Stevie Wonder 1979'Journey through the Secret Life of Plants irakli chochia Stevie Wonder Carpool Karaoke - Duration: 10:53. The Late Late Show with James Corden Recommended for you.
Author | Peter Tompkins, Christopher Bird |
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Publisher | Harper & Row |
Publication date | 1973 |
ISBN | 0-06-091587-0 |
OCLC | 19751846 |
The Secret Life of Plants (1973) is a book by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird. The book documents controversial experiments that claim to reveal unusual phenomena regarding plants such as plant sentience, discovered through experimentation. It goes on to discuss philosophies and progressive farming methods based on these findings. The book was heavily criticized by scientists for promoting pseudoscientific claims.[1][2]
Authors[edit]
Christopher Bird was a best-selling author who also wrote The Divining Hand: The 500-Year-Old Mystery of Dowsing.[3] Peter Tompkins worked as a journalist, as well as a US military intelligence officer for the OSS in Italy during the Second World War[4]
Summary[edit]
The book includes summaries of the life and work of 20th century scientists Jagadish Chandra Bose and Corentin Louis Kervran as well as 19th century scientist George Washington Carver.
The book includes experiments on plant stimuli using a polygraph, a method which was pioneered by Cleve Backster.[5][6] Parts of the book attempt to disparage science, particularly plant biology, for example by claiming science is not concerned with 'what makes plants live', in order to promote its own viewpoint that plants have emotions. The authors further say the authorities are unable to accept that emotional plants 'might originate in a supramaterial world of cosmic beings which, as fairies, elves, gnomes, sylphs, and a host of other creatures, were a matter of direct vision and experience to clairvoyants among the Celts and other sensitives.'[5]
![Plants Plants](/uploads/1/2/5/8/125879986/787472044.jpg)
Criticism[edit]
The book has been criticized by botanists such as Arthur Galston for endorsing pseudoscientific claims.[7] According to Galston and physiologist Clifford L. Slayman many of the claims in the book are false or unsupported by independent verification and replicable studies.[8]
Botanist Leslie Audus noted that the book is filled with nonsensical 'outrageous' claims and should be regarded as fiction.[1]
Documentary[edit]
The book was the basis for the 1979 documentary of the same name,[9] directed by Walon Green and featuring a soundtrack by Stevie Wonder, later released as Journey through the Secret Life of Plants. The film made use of time-lapse photography (where plants are seen growing in a few seconds, creepers reach out to other plants and tug on them, mushrooms and flowers open).[10] The film was originally distributed by Paramount Pictures.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ abAudus, Leslie. (1974). Roots of Absurdity. New Scientist. 17 October. p. 207
- ^Galston, Arthur. (1974). The Unscientific Method. Natural History 83: 18-24.
- ^'Christopher Bird, 68, a Best-Selling Author - New York Times'. Nytimes.com. 1996-05-06. Retrieved 2011-10-24.
- ^Richard Harris Smith (1972). OSS: The Secret History of America's First Central Intelligence Agency. University of California Press. pp. 86–87. ISBN978-0-520-02023-8.
- ^ abAbelson, P. H. (21 June 1974). 'Pseudoscience'. Science. 184 (4143): 1233. Bibcode:1974Sci...184.1233A. doi:10.1126/science.184.4143.1233. PMID17784213.
- ^Randi, James (1998). 'Chapter 13. Science and Pseudoscience'. In Terzian, Yervant (ed.). Carl Sagan's universe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-57286-6.
- ^Galston, Arthur W. (1974). Commentary: The Unscientific Method. By Ignoring Accepted Rules of Evidence, the Authors of a Popularized Book on Plants Reach Many False Conclusions. BioScience 24 (7): 415-416.
- ^Galston, Arthur W; Slayman, Clifford L. (1979). The Not-so-secret Life of Plants: In Which the Historical and Experimental Myths About Emotional Communication Between Animal and Vegetable Are Put to Rest. American Scientist 67 (3): 337-344.
- ^The Secret Life of Plants video on YouTube
- ^The Secret Life of Plants on IMDb
Further reading[edit]
- Galston, Arthur. (1974). The Unscientific Method. Natural History 83: 18-24.
- Mescher, Mark C; Moraes, Consuelo M. De. (2015). The Role of Plant Sensory Perception in Plant–Animal Interactions. Journal of Experimental Botany 66: 425-433.
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Secret_Life_of_Plants&oldid=930119592'
Journey Through 'The Secret Life of Plants' | ||||
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Soundtrack album by | ||||
Released | October 30, 1979 | |||
Recorded | Digitally February–April 1979 | |||
Studio | I.A.M. Studios, Irvine, CA (International Automated Media); Crystal Recording Studio, Hollywood, CA; Lyon Recording Studio, Newport Beach, CA; Sigma Sound Studios, Philadelphia, PA; Motown Recording Studios, Hollywood, CA; Studio In The Country, Bogalusa, LA | |||
Genre | R&B, new age | |||
Length | 90:05 | |||
Label | Tamla | |||
Producer | Stevie Wonder | |||
Stevie Wonder chronology | ||||
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Singles from Stevie Wonder's Journey Through 'The Secret Life of Plants' | ||||
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Stevie Wonder's Journey Through 'The Secret Life of Plants' is an album by Stevie Wonder, originally released on the Tamla Motown label on October 30, 1979 (see 1979 in music). It is the soundtrack to the documentary The Secret Life of Plants, directed by Walon Green, which was based on the book of the same name by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird.
Production[edit]
Wonder created the film score by having Michael Braun, the film's producer, describe each visual image in detail, while the sound engineer, Gary Olazabal, specified the length of a passage. This information was processed to a four-track tape (with the film's sound on one of the tracks), leaving Wonder space to add his own musical accompaniment.[1] Wonder attempted to translate the complex information of the book and film into song lyrics. 'Same Old Story,' for example, tries to convey the scientific findings of Jagadish Chandra Bose, who developed instruments to measure plants' response to stimuli, and the breakthroughs of African-American agriculturalist George Washington Carver. While written mostly by Stevie Wonder, a couple of songs were collaborations with former wife Syreeta Wright and with Michael Sembello.
Journey Through 'The Secret Life of Plants' contained new synthesizer combinations, including the first use of a digital sampling synthesizer, the Computer Music Melodian,[2] used in most tracks of this album.[3]Journey is an early digital recording, released three months after Ry Cooder's Bop till You Drop, generally believed to be the first digitally recorded popular music album, with this album being the second. Stevie Wonder was an early adherent of the technology and used it for all his subsequent recordings.
Release[edit]
Motown released the album as the long-awaited sequel to Stevie Wonder's 1976 Grammy Award-winning Songs in the Key of Life. Such was Wonder's commercial appeal at the time that Journey went all the way up to number four in the Rock and R&B Billboard charts in 1979 and was also certified platinum by Productores de Música de España,[4] while the single 'Send One Your Love' also reached number four.
Reception[edit]
Professional ratings | |
---|---|
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [5] |
Christgau's Record Guide | B–[6] |
Pitchfork | 7.7/10[7] |
Rolling Stone | (mixed)[8] |
Rolling Stone | [9] |
Smash Hits | 6/10[10] |
Yahoo! Music | (mixed)[11] |
Journey Through 'The Secret Life of Plants' has sometimes been considered a 'vague' and 'overambitious' album;[12] it has been called 'goofy', 'nerdy', 'odd', 'pointless' and 'foolish',[13] and for listeners and critics it was seen as too much of a departure from his string of melodic albums.[13] However, some critics have also described it as 'courageous', 'achingly sweet', and 'bafflingly beautiful'.[13]Stephen Holden in a review for the Village Voice remarked that the album has 'the painful awkwardness of a barely literate sidewalk sermon', though Wonder 'manages to transform even the worst of this drivel into a spiritual jargon that's virtually a different language; his very in-articulateness clears the way for us to tune in to the ineffable, nonrational flow that's his obsession.'[14]
Wonder remarked in 2004 that the album 'was an experimental project with me scoring and doing other things I like: challenging myself with all the things that entered my mind from the Venus's Flytrap to Earth's creation to coming back as a flower.'[15]
The cover of the album was selected by Rolling Stone in 1991 for their list of 100 Classic Album Covers as a memorable example of album art.[16]
Track listing[edit]
All tracks written, produced and arranged by Stevie Wonder, except where noted.
Side one
- 'Earth's Creation' – 4:06 (Instrumental)
- 'The First Garden' – 2:32 (Instrumental)
- 'Voyage to India' – 6:29 (Instrumental)
- 'Same Old Story' – 3:44
- 'Venus' Flytrap and the Bug' – 2:25
- 'Ai No, Sono' – 2:06
Side two
- 'Seasons' – 2:53 (Instrumental)
- 'Power Flower' – 5:29
- Lyrics by Michael Sembello.
- 'Send One Your Love (Music)' – 3:05 (Instrumental)
- 'Race Babbling' – 8:51
Side three
- 'Send One Your Love' – 4:01
- 'Outside My Window' – 5:29
- 'Black Orchid' – 3:47
- Lyrics by Yvonne Wright.
- 'Ecclesiastes' – 3:42 (Instrumental)
- 'Kesse Ye Lolo De Ye' – 3:03
- 'Come Back as a Flower' – 4:59
- Lead vocals and lyrics by Syreeta Wright.
Side four
- 'A Seed's a Star/Tree Medley' – 5:53
- Lyrics by Stevie Wonder and Stephanie Andrews.
- 'The Secret Life of Plants' – 4:16
- 'Tree' – 6:01 (Instrumental)
- 'Finale' – 6:50 (Instrumental)
Personnel[edit]
- Stevie Wonder – instruments, synthesizer, vocals
- Syreeta Wright – vocal on 'Come Back as a Flower'
- Bill Wolfer, Clark Spangler, Gordon Bahary – synthesizer, sequencer, programming
- Ben Bridges, Michael Sembello, Rick Zunigar – guitar
- Nathan Watts – bass guitar
- Ron Kersey – Fender Rhodes on 'A Seed's a Star/Tree Medley'
- Dennis Davis – electronic drums on 'A Seed's a Star/Tree Medley'
- Earl DeRouen – congas, bongos, backing vocals on 'A Seed's a Star/Tree Medley'
- Joe Johnson – bells on 'A Seed's a Star/Tree Medley'
- Ibrahim Camara – djembe, congas, bells, drums, vocals on 'Kesse Ye Lolo De Ye'
- Lamine Konté – kora, vocals on 'Kesse Ye Lolo De Ye'
Certifications[edit]
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
Netherlands (NVPI)[17] | Gold | 50,000^ |
Spain (PROMUSICAE)[18] | Platinum | 100,000^ |
^shipments figures based on certification alone |
See also[edit]
- Mother Earth's Plantasia, 1976 album by Mort Garson
References[edit]
- ^Zita Allen, 'Stevie Wonder,' Stereo Review, May 1980, p. 59.
- ^Jack Ryan, 'Recollections, the Detroit Years: The Motown Sound by the People who Made it', Glendower Media, 2012, p. 202.
- ^Mark Vail, 'The Synthesizer: A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding, Programming, Playing, and Recording the Ultimate Electronic Music Instrument', Oxford University Press, January 2014, p. 72.
- ^'Sólo Éxitos 1959-2002 Año A Año: Certificados 1979-1990' (in Spanish). Iberautor Promociones Culturales. ISBN8480486392.
- ^AllMusic review
- ^Christgau, Robert (1981). 'Consumer Guide '70s: W'. Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN089919026X. Retrieved March 9, 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
- ^Beta, Andy (August 4, 2019). 'Stevie Wonder: Stevie Wonder: Stevie Wonder's Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants Album Review'. Pitchfork. Retrieved August 4, 2019.
- ^Rolling Stone review
- ^Nathan Brackett; Christian David Hoard (2004-11-02). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide: Completely Revised and Updated 4th Edition. Simon & Schuster. p. 885. ISBN978-0-7432-0169-8.
- ^Starr, Red. 'Albums'. Smash Hits (November 15–28, 1979): 31.
- ^Yahoo! Music review
- ^Gini Gorlinski (20 Dec 2009). The 100 Most Influential Musicians of All Time. The Rosen Publishing Group. p. 325.
- ^ abcFrancesca T. Royster (26 Dec 2012). Sounding Like a No-No: Queer Sounds and Eccentric Acts in the Post-Soul Era. University of Michigan Press. p. 67.
- ^Stephen Holden, 'The Last Flower Child', Village Voice, December 3, 1979, p. 53.
- ^'Billboard Century Award: Q & A', Billboard, December 11, 2004, pp. 15-16.
- ^James E. Perone (2006). The Sound of Stevie Wonder. Praeger. p. 166.
- ^'Dutch album certifications – Stevie Wonder – ourney Through 'The Secret Life of Plants'' (in Dutch). Nederlandse Vereniging van Producenten en Importeurs van beeld- en geluidsdragers. Retrieved 16 April 2019.Enter ourney Through 'The Secret Life of Plants' in the 'Artiest of titel' box.
- ^Sólo Éxitos 1959–2002 Año A Año: Certificados 1979–1990 (in Spanish), Iberautor Promociones Culturales, ISBN8480486392, retrieved 25 April 2018
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stevie_Wonder%27s_Journey_Through_%22The_Secret_Life_of_Plants%22&oldid=931985733'