Musicians have been tackling environmental issues in song for decades. Here's a short list of some of my favorite anthems for the earth, including a new feature for the Songs and the City column: TDT (Token Dylan Track).

"(Nothing But) Flowers" by Talking Heads

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This late-period Talking Heads track bears the same message as Joni Mitchell's classic "Big Yellow Taxi," but David Byrne takes the opposite approach. Instead of earnest outrage ("They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."), Byrne cloaks social commentary in his usual irony and wit. The song portrays a post-apocalyptic world where all of modern society's trappings have crumbled, covered over by "nothing but flowers."

The song's protagonist longs for the staples of suburban living now long gone: "If this is paradise I wish I had a lawnmower."

"Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth" by Sparks

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This 1974 cut by the underrated (at least in the United States) glam band Sparks was recently covered by indie songstress Neko Case. I like its simple and straightforward message: Don't fuck with nature. We should all heed this warning.

"Cuyahoga" by R.E.M.

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R.E.M. address pollution and the country's shameful treatment of Native Americans in this gem from the band's 1986 album Lifes Rich Pageant. The lines "This land is the land of ours, this river runs red over it," "Underneath the river bed we burned the river down" and "Bury, burn the waste behind you" refer to how the once clean and vibrant river in Northern Ohio became so polluted that it infamously caught fire several times between 1929 and 1969.

These fires ultimately exposed the danger of industrial waste on the environment and led to the landmark Clean Water Act in 1972.

"Monkey Gone to Heaven" by the Pixies

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One of the Pixies most popular and enduring songs, "Monkey Gone to Heaven" references pollution of the oceans. Lead singer Francis Black explains, "On one hand, it's (the ocean) this big organic toilet. Things get flushed and repurified or decomposed and it's this big, dark, mysterious place .... " Ben Sisario, author of Doolittle 33⅓, offers his own interpretation: "Neptune, the god of this realm, the 'underwater guy who controlled the sea,' hung out down there, the personification of man's relationship with the earth.

And what happens to Neptune? He gets "killed by 10 million pounds of sludge from New York to New Jersey." Same thing with the "creature in the sky," who gets stuck up there in a hole in the ozone layer. Man the divine manifestation effectively dies and what remains is his degraded animal nature; the chintzy halo stuck on the primate's head is the symbol of that unhappy fall.

"Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Iron Maiden

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You want epic? Iron Maiden's 13-minute opus from 1984's Powerslave record is a sprawling multi-part metal suite inspired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem of the same name. Lines like "Water, water everywhere — nor any drop to drink" and the final verse, "The mariner's bound to tell of his story/To tell this tale wherever he goes/To teach god's word by his own example/That we must love all things that God made" make it clear that behind the operatic banshee wails of Bruce Dickinson and the twin guitar attack of Dave Murray and Adrian Smith is a message of environmental responsibility.

"Náttúra" by Björk with Thom Yorke

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This song was written and recorded by Björk, with assistance from Radiohead's Thom Yorke, to help raise money and awareness for the Náttúra Foundation, a group dedicated to protecting the Icelandic environment. As someone who honeymooned among Iceland's breathtaking natural beauty, it's a cause that's dear to my heart. I urge you to download the track here. If not for the cause, then for the manic tribal beats and Björk's signature acrobatic vocal display.

"Hymn to Mother Earth" by Demon Fuzz

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The long lost British psychedelic funk band Demon Fuzz is enjoying a small resurgence of late with their spaced-out, Latin-infused soul music finding its way onto DJ turntables across the globe. Originally released in 1970, Afreaka! contains the organ-fueled burner "Hymn to Mother Earth," a song whose title says it all, really.

"Apeman" by the Kinks

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Nearly 20 years before the Pixies used a primate as a symbol for the earth's destruction and modern society's complications, Ray Davies unveiled "Apeman," a witty declaration for a simpler life: "I look out the window, but I can't see the sky/'Cos the air pollution is fogging up my eyes/I want to get out of this city alive/And make like an apeman."

"The Day the World Turned Day-Glo" by X-Ray Spex

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A reviewer described X-Ray Spex, an infectious punk rock band from London as "a wonderful, shambling, musical mess of rebellion, fashion and fun." Main muse Poly Styrene danced, yelped, screamed and sang over the joyful noise belted out by her punchy buzzsaw’n’biscuit-tin band while fighting off Laura Logic’s sax honks from stage left — all with a smile of pure glee."

That said, X-Ray Spex weren't all fun and games. The band's small oeuvre does feature some rousing feminist anthems ("Oh Bondage, Up Yours!") and political screeds, including the environmental clarion, "The Day the World Turned Day-Glo."

"Paradise" by John Prine

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Given the recent Upper Big Branch mining disaster, I couldn't pass up this wonderful track from John Prine's landmark 1971 debut album. It highlights the toll mining takes on both the natural environment and the communities which depend on the industry. The song was written by Prine for his father, and it references a now-defunct town called Paradise in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. "Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel/And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land/Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken/Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man."

"TDT" (TOKEN DYLAN TRACK)

"A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" by Bob Dylan

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I've decided that moving forward every Songs and the City column will feature a token Dylan track that somehow ties into its theme. Although "A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall" was written about the fears of living under the threat of nuclear war, its lyrics are timeless and can certainly be applied to the current environmental crisis.

In fact, officials at the Copenhagen climate summit adopted the song as its unofficial anthem for the talks. With lines like "I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests/I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans," and "I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest/Where the people are many and their hands are all empty/Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters," it makes perfect sense.

This remains one of the most compelling and chilling songs in the history of popular music.