This collection of songs about the environment closes with this strange, sad, beautiful, fatalistic yet oddly hopeful(?) piece from Tom Dyer. Tom and fellow iconoclast Jim of Seattle (whom you might remember from BoW 32) have created a unique musical meditation on the state of the world and the inevitable pull of entropy. The main thesis: Plastification of the oceans notwithstanding, everything will eventually return to a state of nature and neutralize our effect on the planet. Of course, as I was just saying, we don’t want to be too fatalistic about things; but it is true that, at some point, humanity will no longer be a problem for this planet. I think we can acknowledge that while saying we should do our part to push that date back as far as possible, and try to keep it somewhat habitable for other forms of life.
Anyway, back to the music. “Everything in the World . . .” is almost like a musical collage, pasting together strings and synths in various moods and tempos with Dyer’s voice – alternately singing and speaking, celebrating and mourning the many wonders of this world that may or may not perish along with humanity. Like the gravity of our current global situation, this piece takes a while to sink in, but once it grabs hold it’s almost impossible to shake.