#AGURocks is a series of posts by musicians who create science-inspired music and explain their process and inspiration while also showcasing their pieces. Learn more about contributing. The views and lyrics expressed in this post and song do not reflect those of Sharing Science and AGU. This week, Martin Koelling.

Ever since Nick Shackleton first showed his clarinette skills on one of the first ICP conferences (most likely on the ICP3 in Cambridge) it has become a habit to have a Paleomusicology concert the night before the conference ends. It used to be quite classical but it has become more casual during the last years.

Some time last year I had the idea to adapt the 1972 song “Cover of the Rolling Stone” by Shel Silverstein originally performed by Dr Hook & the Medicine Show to digest my experience with publishing an interesting story (shelf life of pyrite) in a high profile journal (Nature -> Science -> Nature Geoscience where it got finally published). So it’s now called “Cover of the Science Mag” which is – together  with Nature – to scientists what the “Rolling Stone” is for rock musicians. Only – as I explain in the intro (long version) – “Nature” does not rhyme with anything.

I ended up writing more than half of the lyrics the two nights before the concert in the hotel room and ended up printing it in the conference office. Since I did not bring a guitar all the way to Australia, I used Luke Skinners guitar that night and I had actually never tried the song before I performed it. Since my musical skills had been quite unknown in the paleoceanography community, basically nobody had an idea what to expect – including Luke who organized the night.

The local student Nick who shows the magazine names was “hired” by my wife (who did the video) a few minutes before the performances started (and he did a wonderful piano performance later that night). It was big fun for me: An audience of 500 who was both, easy to please and expert enough to understand  even the most in-jokes, a magnificent room, an excellent audio system and Luke’s lovely guitar. Looks like the audience had some fun too.

–Martin Koeling is a researcher at MARUM – the Cen­ter for Mar­ine En­vir­on­mental Sci­ences.

Lyrics

Cover of the Science Mag (lyrics M. Kölling, Sep 2019)
1 Well, we’re big mud wringers We got dirty fingers
We really love that ocean floor (That sounds like us)
We use winches and ropes and do boron isotopes
ten-thousand samples a core (Right)
We use all kinds of drills give us all kind of thrills
to get cores for a giant rack
But we never felt the the glory just to see our story
on the cover of the Science Mag

chorus (Science Mag)
Wanna see my paper on the cover (Science Mag)
Wanna buy five copies for my mother
Wanna see my latest thought
on the cover of the Science Mag
(That’s a very, very good idea)

2 I got a freaky young lady with her eyes so shady
who would scan every core just for me
I got that genious lab technician
running my ICP
No mud is too obnoxious if it gives us some proxies
but those proxys turn out to nag
If you do all the caper but you can’t get your paper
on the cover of the Science Mag

chorus (Science Mag)
Wanna see my paper on the cover (Science)
Wanna buy five copies for my mother (Yes) (Sci ence)
Wanna see my latest thought
on the cover of the Science Mag

3 We do free reviews and got Pangaea to use
for all the data you could possibly store
and whatever we gain goes to public domain
every data point from every core
We been on tens of cruises little sleep but bruises
been on ‘Joides’ every second leg
Include some smartass buddies so we get our studies
On the cover of the Science Mag.

chorus (Science Mag)
Wanna see my paper on the cover (Science)
Wanna buy five copies for my mother
Wanna see my latest thought
on the cover of the Science Mag

4 We got loads of willing sycophant students
who would do anything that we say
We got a genuine Paleo Guru
to call them up and pave our way
We got all the machines that money can buy
spitting data without no lag (No)
We got the power and glory but we can’t get our story
on the cover of the Science Mag

chorus (Science Mag)
Wanna see my paper on the cover (Science Mag)
Wanna buy five copies for my mother (Yes) (Sci ence )
Wanna see my latest furt
on the cover of the Science Mag

5 We got that super rare core nobody got before
worth a few middle class cars
We done in depth studies with all of our buddies
and we even did error bars
We spent all those years – using all of our gears
to then submit but what the heck
It turns out the editor just put your competitor
On the cover of the Science Mag

(Rockn Roll – crazy guitar solo over chorus)
(i am stuck) .. (What the .. hell is going on)

6 You went to weirdo places just to find some traces
of thorium in stalactite
you didnt care if it’s safe to enter that cave
were working on it day and night.
The conclusions were perfect but if reviewers reject
you dont really want to complain
So if concerns were major – just submit to “Nature”
and the trouble starts all over again

Ref (na – ature)
Wanna see my paper on the cover (not mature)
Wanna buy five copies for my mother (NGS)
Wanna see my latest thought
on the cover of Science Advances

chorus (Nature comm)
Wanna see my paper on the cover (maybe PNAS)
Wanna buy five copies for my mother (Geology)
Wanna see my latest furt
on the cover of EPSL

chorus (Scientific reports)
Wanna see my paper on the cover (QSR)
Wanna buy five copies for my mother (GRL)
Wanna see my latest graph (where?)
on the cover of Biogeosciences

chorus (Climate of the Past)
Wanna see my paper on the cover (GPC)
Wanna buy five copies for my mother (maybe G3)
Wanna see my latest core
somewhere in marine geology

fading:
chorus (its all too late)
Wanna see my paper on a cover (put it in Research Gate)…..