Ballads for the Age of Science​

Ballads for the Age of Science​

6-CD Boxed Set

  • Disc 1: Space Songs
  • Disc 2: Experiment Songs
  • Disc 3: Nature Songs
  • Disc 4: More Nature Songs
  • Disc 5: Energy and Motion Songs
  • Disc 6: Weather Songs

Disc 1: Space Songs

  1. Zoom A Little Zoom (Rocket Ship)
  2. What Is The Milky Way
  3. Constellation Jig
  4. Beep, Beep (here comes the Satellite)
  5. Why Does The Sun Shine
  6. What Is A Shooting Star
  7. Longitude and Latitude
  8. It’s A Scientific Fact
  9. Ballad of Sir Isaac Newton
  10. Friction
  11. Why Are Stars Of Different Colors
  12. Why Do Stars Twinkle
  13. What Is Gravity
  14. Planet Minute
  15. Why Go Up There

Disc 2: Experiment Songs

  1. It’s a Magnet
  2. Vibration
  3. We Know the Air Is There
  4. We’re Making Heat
  5. Ice Is a Solid
  6. Why Do I Have a Shadow?
  7. Rocks and Gems and Minerals
  8. The Earth Goes Around the Sun
  9. Why Is It Raining Raindrops?
  10. Where Does the Sun Go At Night?
  11. What’s Inside Our Earth?
  12. Where Does the Sun Rise?
  13. How Many Colors Are In the Rainbow?
  14. Who’s Afraid of Thunder?
  15. It’s a Magnet (Reprise)

​Disc 3: Nature Songs

  1. Introduction to Nature Study
  2. Why Do Leaves Change Their Color?
  3. What Are the Parts of a Tree?
  4. What Is an Insect?
  5. What Is a Mammal?
  6. How Do the Fish Swim?
  7. Song of the Rocks
  8. The Birds Have a Language
  9. How Does a Bird Sing?
  10. What Does a Bird Have That I Have Not?
  11. How Is Silk Made?
  12. What’s In the Ocean?
  13. How Do the Seeds of Plants Travel?
  14. The Balance of Nature

​Disc 4: More Nature Songs

  1. Metamorphosis
  2. How Does a Frog Become a Frog?
  3. What Is an Animal?
  4. Bobo the Bear
  5. Song of the Fossils
  6. How Does a Cow Make Milk?
  7. Eohippus
  8. The Conservation Song
  9. Why Is the Sky Blue?
  10. What Makes a Rainbow?
  11. Let’s Wander Thru the Seasons
  12. Why Does a Bee Bzzz?
  13. What Are the Parts of a Flower?
  14. The Face of the Earth Is Changing

​Disc 5: Energy and Motion Songs

  1. What Is Energy?, Pt.
  2. Grand Coulee Dam (How Energy Changes Form)
  3. E-Lec-Tri-City
  4. Engines
  5. Solar Energy
  6. Energy In Roundabout Ways
  7. What Is Energy?, Pt.
  8. Kinetic and Potential Energy
  9. Jets (Action and Reaction)
  10. Ultra Violet and Infra Red
  11. What Is Chemical Energy?
  12. How Do We Measure Energy?
  13. Motion, Motion Everywhere
  14. Thumbnail Sketch of Atomic Energy

Disc 6: Weather Songs

  1. What Makes the Weather?
  2. Where Is the Stratosphere?
  3. The Water Cycle Song
  4. Why Does the Wind Blow?
  5. How Clouds Are Formed
  6. Warm Fronts, Cold Fronts
  7. What Is Humidity?
  8. The Hurricane Song
  9. Why Is It Hot in the Summer?
  10. Highs and Lows
  11. What Makes the Lightning
  12. Stratus and Cumulus
  13. Snowflake, Snowflake
  14. What Does the Glass of a Greenhouse Do?
  15. What Is Climate?
  16. What Makes the Weather? (Reprise)

For the first time in over fifty years, Harbinger Records is proud to release a six-CD box set of BALLADS FOR THE AGE OF SCIENCE, the most successful educational recordings projects of all time. Even today, Baby Boomers have fond memories of these catchy songs. The original recordings are now cherished by collectors both for their beautiful covers and for nostalgic memories of their youth.

These songs introduce scientific concepts and terms using catchy, easily learned words and music. They were originally published as monophonic LPs in 1961 by Motivation Records, a division of Argosy. They were available as individual albums and as a boxed set. The set is officially titled BALLADS FOR THE AGE OF SCIENCE but is also known as Singing Science Records. They sprang from the opus of Little Songs that Hy Zaret and Lou Singer wrote, and include many songs from the set of Now We Know records.

Famed illustrator Leo Leonni designed the wonderful covers for each album. Hy Ruchlis was the science advisor.
People have said many nice things about these songs. But perhaps the most gratifying praise is that, decades after these recordings were out of print, fans created web sites and Facebook pages in their honor.

They Might Be Giants included covers for two of these songs in their albums. “Why Does the Sun Shine” is on “Severe Tire Damage.” “Why Does the Sun Shine?” and “What is a Shooting Star” are on “Here Comes Science.” That album also includes a parody/update of “Why Does the Sun Shine” called “Why Does the Sun Really Shine.”

Isaac Asimov wrote an essay called “Catskills in the Sky” which appeared in the August 1960 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He tells an anecdote about his children receiving this album as a present. He liked the music so much, especially the song “Why Go Up There,” that he appropriated the album for his own record collection. (And in the essay, gives reasons as why mankind should “go up there.”

The song “Zoom a Little Zoom” has notably been used in the popular online vlog Rocketboom as its theme song.
On September 27, 2005 episode of Rocketboom featured the songs “Why Do Stars Twinkle?” and “Beep,Beep”.
In 2008 Chloé Leloup, Miss LaLaVox and Achim Treu reworked the album under the title “The Space Songs – Ballads for the Age of Science.” The album was released on the label Sopot Records.

The lyrics of the first stanza of “Why Does the Sun Shine?” also appear verbatim in the book Stars: A Golden Guide, apart from the omission of “its core is” before “a gigantic nuclear furnace.”

Listen to sample tracks and purchase at Amazon

Purchase SPACE SONGS at iTunes
Purchase EXPERIMENT SONGS at iTunes
Purchase NATURE SONGS at iTunes
Purchase MORE NATURE SONGS at iTunes
Purchase ENERGY AND MOTION SONGS at iTunes
Purchase WEATHER SONGS at iTunes