Time to get ready for the storm

June 9th, 2024

Executive Summary: This blog will discuss music, climate, weather, climate and weather in music, and climate and weather in other media (mediums?).

Intro

I am a climate scientist that specializes in tropical atmospheric dynamics, especially monsoons. I am also pretty obsessed with music. And I am interested in the connections among science, music, and other artistic media (mediums?).

Because being a scientist is my job, I already spend a lot of time each week thinking about science for its own sake. I get to think about music etc. much less. So this blog is an attempt to scratch the itch I have to think and share more about music. The connections made with climate and weather will, I hope, make it unique.

I have been doing something similar on Twitter for a while now via my #CliSciHiFi series of tweets. Those have been a blast (despite not exactly having gone viral), but sometimes there is simply more to say than can fit in a tweet.

The title

Couldn’t Stand The Weather is an album by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, their second, released in 1984. “Couldn’t Stand The Weather” is also the second track thereof—after the opener `“Scuttle Buttin’”, a personal SRV favorite. It captures a couple things I’m trying to accomplish here. First, obviously, is linking weather/climate and music. Second, less obviously, is fun. The song is funky, driving, a tune you can’t help but nod your head to. It’s also bluesy, with a hell of a lot of soul. I hope this blog ends up the same way: fun but with substance.

If you’re really feeling the SRV vibes, check out the song’s official music video. It’s good on a surface level for some laughs at the 1980s production cheese (see screenshot on the right). On a deeper level, sure the symbolic montage of people yelling at each other is heavy-handed—though in 2024, maybe it’s right on the money—but it actually also connects with another of my aims: tuning out the shouting matches to just groove. A lot of climate science media coverage and in the blogosphere is much closer to the shouting folks in the video than any of us would probably care to admit. Here, we’re trying to be Stevie and the fellas jamming instead.

Fig. 1 From the official music video. Let’s avoid this.

In other words, I couldn’t stand the weather, and this is the result.

Anyways, SRV is rightly known for his virtuosity as a blues guitarist, but I think he is underrated (especially on the coasts) as a songwriter and lyricist. Just check out the lyrics to this track; the second verse especially is as close to Bob Dylan as SRV’s guitar licks are to Jimi Hendrix (which is to say, very close):

Runnin’ through this business of life
Raisin’ sand if I’m needed to
Ain’t so funny when things ain’t feelin’ right
Then daddy’s hand helps to see me through
Sweet as sugar, love won’t wash away
Rain or shine, it’s always here to stay
All these years you and I’ve spent together
All this we just, couldn’t stand the weather

Like a train that stops at every station
We all deal with trials and tribulations
Fear hangs the fellow that ties up his years
Entangled in yellow and cries all his tears
Changes come before we can grow
Learn to see them before we’re too old
Don’t just take me for tryin’ to be heavy
Understand, it’s time to get ready for the storm

Couldn’t have said it better myself.