Saving Santa

Just in time for the holidays, a seasonal tune that will keep you humming! Written by Captain Sea Level, and performed by the musical crowd he swings with, you may have heard "When the North Pole Melts" on FM stations around the country – or the BBC. Below, excerpts from CA-CP’s recent interview with Captain Sea Level Rise, and links to the song…

Excerpts…

CA-CP: What led you to produce "When the North Pole Melts"?

CSL: I was writing about one song a month in 1987, and it was only natural to write one for Christmas. My friends thought that "Captain Sea Level's Christmas Song" was as good as "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer." In the spring of 1988 I met a jazz musician named John Huckans, who liked the Beach Boys as much as I did. So we deconstructed their harmonies, wrote up the arrangements, and formed an a capella group that did nothing but Beach Boys.... In terms of global warming, 1988 was a bellweather year. We had near-record heat and droughts. Congress held serious hearings on global warming. My friends at EPA were preparing the first large-scale assessment of the impacts of global climate change on the United States. Weird things were happening at the Jersey Shore: On Memorial Day, the ocean temperature was 70 degrees! But in July, we had upwelling and the ocean was only 65 degrees. One of our two baritones was complaining how cold it was on the beach, and I reminded him that it was probably 90-95 in Maryland. When we got back we found it had been 104 that weekend, the second hottest ever.

When fall arrived…I suggested that we record something .... I told [John] that this was an opportunity to do some good, to help draw attention to a problem that needed some recognition. Except for the climate and coastal scientists, people were not thinking much about global warming. Aside from WRI and Friends of the Earth, few of the NGO's were engaged. The people of the coast needed help.

The other point I made to John was that there was a good chance that if we did it right, we would get radio stations to play "When the North Pole Melts." Advent (the month before Christmas) is to a musician what September is to a baseball player. It's that short window of opportunity when the minor leaguers or amateur musicians get to play in the big time. Many radio stations will pick up any interesting or oddball stuff, the weirder the better, at Christmas time. They don't care who you are: if it’s entertaining, they’ll play it.

CA-CP: There is a rumor that in real life, you are John Topping, President of the Climate Institute, former speechwriter for the John Anderson Presidential Campaign.

CSL: It is true that we have never been photographed together. Actually, we would not have put this together without John. It's one thing to say we should record a song, it's another sing to actually do it. John Topping called me up, and said that he wanted Captain Sea Level and his band of beach singers to do a performance at the awards dinner of their December Conference. I think they were presenting an award to Sir Crispin Tickell, who had been a key British Ambassador to the United Nations and was also instrumental in getting the British government--and thereby the EU--to think about climate change. I told John Topping that we had a Christmas song, and he put us on the agenda. So now I had no choice but to write out an arrangement and teach everybody the parts.
John Huckans and I realized that we would need some other singers, so the logical place to start was the EPA chorus, the largest group of singers who are all dedicated to the environment. I made a demo tape, and the chorus director recommended several good singers, including Kirby Biggs who is a fantastic bass, and Charlie Garlow, an enforcement attorney who even then was driving around in solar powered cars. They were enthusiastic, and helped me enlist two other singers from the EPA chorus.

CA-CP: And then you recorded it. The song was picked up by FM stations from Florida to Colorado to Maryland – even the BBC. And you also performed it. How was it received?

CSL: It was decidedly mixed. The Climate Institute was happy; but my boss, who was in the audience, thought we were so bad that he refused to ever listen to the song again.
One common misunderstanding about the song was the impression that we were saying that the North Pole melting causes the sea level to rise. Now, we never suggested that in the song; arctic melting and sea level rise are both impacts of global warming. I guess they were assuming that if Captain Sea Level is singing, the song has to be about sea level rise. Look: Captain Sea Level does have a life and does occasionally think about things other than sea level rise. Christmas is a time of year when it is particularly important to think about something other than your agenda. At the time, the impact of abrupt climate change in the Arctic seemed to have a global importance at least as great as sea level rise…

I think that people concerned about the environment--or about any social problem--often get labeled "gloom-and-doom". I just wanted to have some fun, while still speaking the truth.
Of course, I also have an ax to grind. I’m concerned about what will happen to our coasts. We are managing things as if the sea is not rising, but because it is, we are gradually losing a lot of things that matter. Now, we have to either learn to live with a rising sea or stop the sea from rising. You may think that reducing greenhouse gases takes a radical restructuring of our economy, but just imagine how hard it would be to persuade everyone in a nice coastal subdivision that they have to move a mile inland so wetlands, horseshoe crabs, birds, and fish can move in….

Want More?

• Song, fast connection [11.5 MB]
• Song, iPod version [4 MB]
• Read the interview in its entertaining entirety.
• For song files using more efficient compression techniques or sheet music, go to Captain Sea Level’s website.