Autopoiesis-inspired Songs

People often say this autopoiesis stuff is difficult - Maturana's papers are not exactly easy bedtime reading - so, about 20 years ago, I started to write songs about this to help me understand and to share this experience with others. It's been an incredibly satisfying journey which affirmed for me the practical value of aiming to trigger, not to inform; otherwise the songs we sing at workshops could not have been successful. They have been welcomed by Humberto during his presentations and sung in many unexpected settings from Philosophy Conferences to breakfasts with students.

The lyrics for a few of the songs I originally used are given below on this page.

A more convenient form of the songs I use most in 2007 is the pdf file of my SONGBOOK VOLUME 1.

A larger collection of the songs is in html files here as SONG BOOKS including the song for Alan Stewart and the World Café called The Conversing Café.

 

 

SONG OF AUTONOMOUS UNITIES

Many Australian students of autopoiesis (young and old) are familiar with this little song. It has provided light relief at times when talk of 'histories of structural coupling' and 'objectivity in parentheses' became too heavy. But there could be something else about it, too. I say to students that listening to a chorus is an academic exercise, whereas singing it aloud is to experience its meaning. This is a bouncy 6/8 which most people seem to enjoy joining in - even with the long words - and it's a way to ease into the interesting process of singing as part of a network of conversation.
I am an autonomous unity
My structure is very profound
While everything else is a line to me
To me I am perfectly round
My history mystery I will unveil
Believing I know as I do
This world I bring forth is my own and I love
Your autopoietical you
Not hypothetical, just parenthetical,
Autopoietical you

THE SECOND-ORDER SONG

This song is also designed to de-mystify a complex topic - in this case a basic concept of second-order cybernetics. I like the quote from Heinz von Foerster: "Objectivity is a subject's delusion that observing can be done without him. Invoking objectivity is abrogating responsibility; hence its popularity."
The verses are half-spoken in this song. I like to introduce it with a quote from Buckminster Fuller: "I seem to be a verb."
If I'm doing something to it, it's an object
To objectify existence is a must
By discovering the objects all around me
I know my world is something I can trust.
(Trust! Trust?)
But what if it is doing something to me?
Have I become a victim of its way?
Could it be I've given it my power?
How come I don't seem to have a say?
Chorus: Second order, second order,
Second order singing is a song, song, song
Second order, second order,
Second order singing is a song. Repeat
What is this that I am doing to it?
Giving it its objectivity
As if it was completely independent
Of little, old, good-for-nothing, me.
I do believe that I was its inventor
Perhaps I only have myself to blame
What it does and what I do are not different
The action and the object are the same.
Repeat Chorus

TALKING UP, TALKING DOWN

This is a very simple song with a 3/4 arpeggio accompaniment which I use to speak a little wistfully about conversation and culture. It is probably a truism, but I've certainly found that songs can get away with being simplistic and repetitive in a way that prose cannot.
How do we co-exist in the world today?
How do we get along with our fellows?
We just talk and our words make the world what it is
Talking up, talking down, our world
And they say it will be a great sight to see
When the world is a better place
But the way it will be will be spoken by me
And will shine like the smile on my face
How do we co-exist in the world today?
How do we get along with our fellows?
We just talk and our words make the world what it is
Talking up, talking down, our world

I PRODUCE MYSELF

This song is a reprise - autopoiesis revisited. I tell students that their teachers are trying to turn them into something, but they will (thankfully) turn into themselves. That's what autopoiesis means. I like to think that all the clever things we produce - our art, our buildings, even our ideas - come about through interaction with something else. It isn't us in isolation - it's our interaction with one another or with the materials we use. I heard a potter say: "the clay forms itself into the pot within my hands." She was simply being aware of the interaction.
Now I'm a man who said that he was going to the top
Who claimed he had the necessary skills
Who had a great ambition which nobody could stop
And said: "I'll do what anybody wills"
So I produced the goods for other people
I made a standard line that you could stock
I daren't make them wrong - I was the quality control
Until one day it hit me like a rock. . .
That I am not the same as other people
Even though I learned to do like you
I try to do a lot of things that other people do, but
I produce myself and that is all I do
Chorus: I must tell you this in all due fairness
That I will never be the same as you
I try to do a lot of things that other people do, but
I produce myself and that is all I do
Repeat Chorus
They told me that the most important thing was to produce
That output was the measure of a man
Advancement will depend on the amount that you produce
Provided that it fits the business plan
So I produced the goods for other people
I tried to be as good as all the rest
I dared to hope I might become the ultimate success
Until one day they put me to the test . . .
The only thing that counted was my output
I was only what I could produce
I want to do a lot of things that other people do, but
I produce myself and that is all I do
Repeat Chorus
So I know that the way that I am here with you
- as we do what we can do together
Is the same as the way that I work with the world
- this and me, that and me, this and me
And from the two arises all my output
Always me with something else it's true
I may not do a lot of things that other people do, but
I produce myself and that is what I do
Repeat Chorus

COLOURS SINGING IN THE WIND (SONNY'S SONG)

I wanted to pay tribute to the culture and the spirit of conversation amongst Australian aboriginal people and honour three special friends:
Sonny, the graffiti artist, who died at the age of 22, who gave me the words of this chorus from the caption of one of his paintings,
Les, his Dad, who also painted and shared his wisdom and compassion, and
Tex, Australian Aboriginal Artist of the Year in 1992, who treated me like a brother.
A beautiful choral arrangement of this song was written by Pat Rix from Adelaide and she conducted a performance of it by combined choirs in the Adelaide Town Hall on the occasion of an address by Robert Theobald in 1998. This arrangement was later recorded on a CD for reconciliation with Aborigines in Australia by a High School choir in Armidale. Subsequently it was performed by a choir and Aboriginal dancers at the Festival of the Coast in South Australia in 2001.
Chorus: I can hear my colours singing
Through my culture deep within
Feel a peaceful sense of beauty
(For) I am brother to the wind
I thought that I had lost my dreaming
I thought that I had lost my way
I thought that I had lost my people
All gone astray
But then I heard the sound of talking
I sat round talking every day
And in the words that I was talking
I heard a black man, black woman, black man, black woman say
Repeat Chorus
I thought that I had lost my talking
I thought that I had lost my mind
But then I heard it all around me
Blowing on the wind
The wind that sounds like colours singing
A spirit moving in the sky
And in the words that I was singing
I heard a black man, black woman, black man, black woman cry
Repeat Chorus

There are many more of my song lyrics in the SONG BOOKS Volume 1 and Volume 2.