5) “Kings Lead Hat” by Brian Eno.

Best lines: “the passage of my life is measured out in shirts” and “the biology of purpose keeps my nose above the surface.”
Before and After Science is the title of the album and it sets the tone for the collection’s concept and overall feel. It contains some of Eno’s most accessible music, structured within pop parameters and not his usual signature synthesizer experiments and riffs. Another stand-out (from what I can remember on my LP, since it’s not on iTunes) is the meditative “In These Metal Days,” which contains his hit “Here He Comes” about “the boy who tried to vanish to another time.”

Cartoon by Rossana Henriques

4) “Rocket Man” by Elton John.

Best line: “And all this science, I don’t understand, it’s just my job five days a week.”
This song is a twin to Bowie’s “Space Oddity” (see below), in that the astronaut is alienated and lonely in his mission. I’ve probably heard “Rocket Man” a few hundred times since its release and will still listen when it comes up on my iPod or on the radio.

3) “She Blinded Me with Science” by Thomas Dolby.

Best lines: “She blinded me with science!” and “Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You’re beautiful!”
These lines, along with the song’s humorous spoken exclamations of “Science!” are complemented by a picture perfect clichéd scientist lip-synching in the video from the early 1980s. This was when videos were still fresh and new and MTV was a novel idea.

2) Both “Space Oddity” and “Ashes to Ashes” by David Bowie.

Best lines: “Here am I, floating ‘round my tin can, far above the world” and “My momma says to get things done, you better not mess with Major Tom.”
“Space Oddity” was written in the 1970s when one of David Bowie’s personas was that of an extraterrestrial. He brilliantly melded his movie role as the alien in The Man Who Fell to Earth with his underrated album Station to Station. It all started with “Space Oddity” with its dreamy guitars and the disconnected Major Tom manning the space ship. “Ashes to Ashes” was written in the 1980s and continues the Major’s saga, who is now said to be a “junkie” who is “strung out on Heaven’s high, hitting an all-time low.” I always thought the song was about Thom’s Catastrophe Theory—a “Major Tom”…whatever that is.

1) “The Scientist” by Coldplay.

Best stanza: “I was just guessin’ at numbers and figures,
Pulling the puzzles apart.
Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart.”
As a fan of the Beatles and as a songwriter in their style, I believe that melody is the most important element in composition. The Scientist’s vocal line is chilling and beautiful at the same time. When Mr. Martin sings: “Nobody said it was easy,” one is carried along to that soulful place that music brings us to when it is at its best.