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Good morning. Despite that extraordinary mistake at last night’s Oscars, the popularity of La La Land is a reminder of the enduring power of the musical to tell human stories. The New York Times described the power of the movie as not just boy meets girl romance but the tension ‘between ambition and love’, where career dreams clash with putting the other first in a relationship. Yet this tension is worked out in the fun of song, dance and music.

A recent paper in the journal, Evolution and Human Behavior, has speculated that song itself may have evolved out of a very practical tension of love and differing commitments. The universality and diversity of music has been a problem for evolutionary science in explaining its origin. Professor of Psychology Steven Pinker, famously described music as ‘auditory cheesecake’, satisfying only our need for pleasure. However, Samuel Mehr and Max Krasnow of Harvard University theorise that infant-directed song evolved as a way for parents to signal to children that their needs are being met, while still freeing up parents to perform other tasks, and this may later have evolved into the complex music of the modern world. Thus song emerges out of this tension of getting on with life while providing lots of opportunities for parents to signal their attention, adapting the music in response to the baby’s demeanour.

Whether or not this proves to be a good explanation for its origin, this link between music and attention is important in situations, not only for infants, where there is a tension of love and ambition to do other things. Many songs are born out of the complex nature of relationship and become a bonding experience between adults. Christian worship has long valued song in being attentive to the presence and love of God. Indeed, in my own Methodist tradition, I have found that singing praise to God re-orientates my self-identity and ambitions in life.

Perhaps we need to sing more. African theologian Mvume Dandala speaks of the importance in his culture, that when a child has done well, a praise song is composed for the child. Another family I know have a rule that when they want to criticise someone it has to be done in song, a rule that may be fun on this programme.

Naomi Harris, characterised the real best picture winner Moonlight, as expressing a universal yearning for connection. For me music is a delicious auditory cheesecake, but it is also a conduit of connection in a complex world between human beings and with God.

First broadcast 27 Feb 2017

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