Earth Song

A blue dot in a mote of dust.
From eyes in orbit, we see the scope.
R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Her.
A new perspective that gives us hope.
She's one of a kind.
Can't leave her behind.
She's one of a kind.
Ya know we're walkin' the line.
She's one of a kind.
Gotta pay her some mind.
She's one of a kind.
Gonna make it through fine.

— Tupper Ware Remix Party, "R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Her (Earth Day special)"

Music, like all art forms, can be used as a form of activism. In the case of music, there have been entire albums dedicated to singing songs about how great trees are, how late-stage capitalism is pouring toxic waste into our drinking water, and that if we do not work together as one humongous family, our precious planet will die with us still on it.

Sung and listened to by Nature Lovers, the common Earth Song likes to portray the plants and animals of the world as an awesome thing that we as a species must defend lest nature come to realize that we are the problem and reap justice upon us all. Inversely, Darker and Edgier takes on the topic focuses on the oppositional side of things; pollution, the greed and ignorance that propagates it and the illness and death that it causes.

Often serves as Gaia's Lament. As the name would imply, Nature Metal makes songs like this to appeal to the hard rocking crowd. Can be a Warning Song if it talks about the dangers of harming the environment.

Sub-Trope of Educational Song. Unrelated to the webcomic Earthsong, nor the book, Earthsong.

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Examples:

Asian Animation

• BoBoiBoy: "Jagalah Bumi", which translates to "Take Care of the Earth", is an official soundtrack for the show made by Indonesian rock band Kotak. It promotes finding beauty in nature and encourages others to care for (and defend) the planet. The soundtrack's release coincided with the series' three-episode-special about caring for the planet titled after the song ^note (though translated as "Saving Planet Earth" in English despite the same Malay wording), and was used as credits music for those episodes and the rest of the series.

Films — Animation

• In The Lorax (2012), the movie's climax ends with a song where the entirety of Thneedville agree to let the truffula tree seed grow in the song "Let It Grow." A common criticism people had with the movie is that while the Central Theme of the movie is about environmentalism, this is the only song in favor of preserving nature; the rest of the songs are sung in favor of the anti-environmentalist corporate mindset that the film is allegedly condemning.
• Scooby-Doo! and the Witch's Ghost gives up "Earth, Wind, Fire and Air" by the Hex Girls.
  Earth, wind, fire and air
  We may look bad, but we don't care
  We ride the wind, we feel the fire
  To love the Earth is our desire
  (To love the Earth is our desire)

Films — Live-Action

• In Bio-Dome, Tenacious D cameos as musicians singing a tree-hugging song at an Earth Day environmentalist rally.
• Get Ready to Be Boyzvoiced has "Hey Mr. President", in which the singer addresses the President of the U.S. on the poor state of the natural environment and encourages him to take action.

Live-Action TV

• The Look and Read series Earth Warp has one as its theme song.
  It's our planet, it's our place
  We must save the human race
  Earth Warp! We must save the world
  Save the creatures, save the trees
  Save the land and save the seas
  Earth Warp! We must save the world.
• Sesame Street:
  • "We Are All Earthlings" — one of Sesame Street's most beloved songs — serves as a paean to biodiversity, and acknowledges that all creatures — human and non-human — deserve a healthy future.
  • "Don't Throw Your Trash on the Ground" talks about how you should never litter but use trash bins instead.
  • "The Wasteroon Song" is about how if you leave the tap running, you're wasting water and are thus a "wasteroon".
  • "Don't Waste Water" is about why water is important and shouldn't be wasted.
  • The similarly-titled "Don't Waste the Water" is about how you should never leave your faucet running.
  • There are three songs featuring a character named Willie Wimple, about environmentalism— one is about deforestation, one is about littering, and the final one is about water pollution. They show Willie doing the bad thing and sing about the terrible things that would happen if all children did it.
  • In "Just Throw it My Way", Oscar sings about how you should throw your trash into his bin instead of on the ground.
  • "Good Morning, Mr. River" talks about how rivers are disappearing due to pollution.
  • "Love the Ocean" is about how you should never throw garbage into the ocean.
  • "Turn off the Tap" is about how you should turn off taps when you're done using them.
  • "Pond Full of Fish" tells the audience not to pollute ponds.
  • "Water" is about the uses for water and includes a verse on not wasting it.
• The Shining Time Station episode, "Stacy Cleans Up" has a song called "If Everyone Did a Little", which is all about recycling garbage to keep the Earth clean.
• The Sooty Show episode "A Load of Rubbish" ends with Matthew and Soo singing about how they're "keen to be green" and tells the viewers not to litter and to help save the earth.
• Sunny Side Up has the "Trash Truck Song," performed by Kaitlin and Chica.

Music

• Alabama has "Pass It On Down", which mentions events such as tap water not being safe to drink, the hole in the ozone layer, and rainforests being burned. The song is about preserving the environment for future generations.
• Bersuit Vergarabat has "Madre Hay Una Sola", a song that complains about how industrial/societal progress only brought more problems than it was worth, and the chorus portraying the titular Mother Nature as a woman being raped in a pathetic feast by humanity.
• "Time Will Crawl" by David Bowie is a song inspired by the Chernobyl disaster, the lyrics about pollution and industry's destruction of Earth.
• John Denver's "Earth Songs" and "The Flower that Shattered the Stone".

• Epica's song "Deep Water Horizon" was inspired by the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill caused when the oil rig Deepwater Horizon caught fire and sank. The song is also more broadly about climate change caused by the consumption of fossil fuels.
• Helloween:
  • Among the many things "Paint A New World", from Gambling With The Devil, denounces, the song mentions global warming ("Poles are melting"), the ozone layer being widened ("Holes in the sky"), intentional forest burning ("Woods are on fire"), and city-based pollution ("Scary pollution").
  • "If A Mountain Could Talk" from 7 Sinners, meanwhile, adds natural resource consumption ("Resources will soon be consumed") to the list.
• "Earth Song" by Michael Jackson was a song made to promote environmentalism and animal welfare, originally made for the Dangerous album before it was cut.
• Joni Mitchell released "Big Yellow Taxi" in April 1970. It was inspired by her trip to Hawaii, where her hotel overlooked Sugarloaf Mountain and verdant greenery... and one big parking lot. Joni also visited the Foster Botanical Gardens, where the admission for one adult at the time was $1.50. "They took all the trees / Put 'em in a tree museum / And charged all the people / A dollar and a half just to see 'em."
• Lil Dicky has Earth, a song that tends to be more comical and vulgar, but still carries the message of taking care of the planet. Helps that multiple artists cooperated with some of the verses.
• Nightwish's song "Procession" is written from the perspective of the animal kingdom talking to humanity in both fear and kinship. The lyric video lists off a number of endangered species during the bridge of the song.
• R.E.M. have two environmentalist songs on the album Lifes Rich Pageant. The first, "Fall On Me", is about air pollution. The second, "Cuyahoga", was inspired by Ohio's Cuyahoga River, which was so heavily polluted it caught fire on multiple occasions (which comes up in the lyrics).
• "R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Her (Earth Day special)" by Tupper Ware Remix Party is an uplifting song addressing the Earth itself as a nurturing mother who, while under-appreciated, it worth fostering and protecting, the music video primarily made up of footage of the various biomes on its surface.
• "Dreamer" even starts with the words "Gazing out the window at the world outside, wondering will Mother Earth survive, hoping mankind will stop abusing her sometime". The song is pretty much a guilt-trip about how badly we treat the world, always fighting amongst ourselves and so on. Ozzy goes on to lament about how we need to find serenity and to work together to stop the issues before it's too late.

• “Earth Warrior” by Omnia encourages the listener to fight on the Earth’s behalf in the war on nature.
• Pink Floyd's "Take It Back", from The Division Bell, is about humanity's degradation of the environment, using the metaphor of an abusive relationship.
• Country Music artist John Anderson did this twice. First was his 1992 hit "Seminole Wind", which is a plea for preservation of the Everglades in his home state of Florida. He also touched on it four years later with "Long Hard Lesson Learned", which contains the lyric "save the oceans and the woods".
• "Tomorrow's World" was a 1990 multi-artist Country Music single written by Pam Tillis and Kix Brooks to honor the 20th anniversary of Earth Day. Its lyrics push a message of environmentalism through the line "we must save tomorrow's world today".

Web Videos

• Twisted Translations: In the cover of "Just Around the River Bend" from Pocahontas, Pocahontas is an environmentalist and keeps singing about protecting the environment.

Western Animation

• In Central Park, Season 2 "Of Course You Realize This Means Ward", "Why Bother" starts off with the jaded Dr. Ward Wittlinger telling the kids at a field trip that they shouldn't bother caring about the environment because the world's already doomed. Owen (with Elwood and Birdie backing him up) counters this cynicism by explaining why they should bother trying to preserve all the great things about nature, and wins the kids over to his point of view.
• The end credits song of The Fruitties is about the beauty of the forest. Its chorus features its vocalists singing word-for-word that they "should take care of the forest".
• Higglytown Heroes: In "Fran in the Moon", Kip's dad sings "Earth is the Planet for Me" to explain to the kids why they should take care of it: because it's the only habitable one and has places, plants, and animals that no other planet has.
• In the Muppet Babies (1984) episode, "Muppet Babies: The Next Generation", Rowlf meets his future grandson, Woof, who reveals to him that the reason why the Earth remained good in the future was because people like him took good care of it in the past. Woof and Rowlf then proceed to sing a song called "The Future is Counting on You", which is all about protecting the Earth.
• Ready Jet Go!:
  • "Tiny Blue Dot" is a soft ballad sung by the characters about how precious Earth is, and how it's worth protecting.
  • "Every Day is Earth Day" is about how Earth Day should really be celebrated every day. It talks about the various features of the Earth and how unique and livable it is compared to other planets in the Solar System.
• The Rocko's Modern Life episode, "Zanzibar" has "The Recycle Song", a Spelling Song about recycling sung by Captain Compost Heap, which inspires the citizens of O-Town to recycle their garbage to keep the Earth clean.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: Downplayed in the Earth Day special "SpongeBob's Last Stand." SpongeBob and Patrick sing a protest song defending Jellyfish Fields from the impeding superhighway construction, but the connection to the environment is a bit flimsy in practice, since it's mostly done as a nonsensical List Song and doesn't really win anybody over. It's also a parody of John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" and ends with the duo dressed as hippies.

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