Racing Towards Zero – Day 10: Tom Glazer & Dottie Evans – Thumbnail Sketch of Atomic Energy

Last night I saw a fascinating documentary on The Manhattan Project—the real Manhattan Project. “The Moment In Time: The Manhattan Project”, created for the Local Legacies Project of the US Library of Congress, took a stroll down atomic memory lane, from the fear and uncertainty in the beginning of WWII to the first tests in New Mexico, and on to the opinions of the scientists involved after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Though it wasn’t a big budget documentary, it was absolutely fascinating, and can be seen in it’s entirety online at UCTV from the University of California here.

However with this song, serendipity strikes twice! Tom Glazer & Dottie Evans recorded three albums in a six-album series called Singing Science Records, perhaps most famous for “Why Does The Sun Shine?”, later covered by They Might Be Giants (who, incidentally, were no doubt inspired by this set to create their own educational discs such as Here Come the A-B-C’s and Here Comes Science). This particular track, off of Energy Songs, highlights key moments in atomic energy history, almost a musical accompaniment to the Manhattan Project documentary. The song itself seems eerily upbeat though, in wake of having seen the film, but it includes a redeeming ominous message at the end, having been recorded about 15 years after the bombings in Japan.

The second odd case of serendipity here is that in my research I discovered that Tom Glazer moved to Washington DC early on, began working at the Library of Congress, and actually worked with none other than Alan Lomax! His work with American folk music was a great influence on him, and ultimately jump-started his musical career.

Anyhow, if you’re not up to speed on your history of atomic energy, feel free to play this one over and over until it all sinks in. When I first found these, a Google search for “Singing Science Records” pulled up only one page, but it seems that in the last few years, these out-of-print gems have been “discovered”. The original page is no longer around, and the resourceful can find more tracks from the series online, but for now, here, enjoy “Thumbnail Sketch of Atomic Energy”:

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