{"id":60218,"date":"2023-06-13T21:47:42","date_gmt":"2023-06-13T19:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/?p=60218"},"modified":"2023-07-31T09:24:24","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T07:24:24","slug":"roger-payne-whale-songs-listening-remembering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/story\/60218\/roger-payne-whale-songs-listening-remembering\/","title":{"rendered":"Whales always had voices. Roger Payne helped the world hear them"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Whales could always speak for themselves. Humans just didn\u2019t hear them. <\/p>\n\n

Roger Payne changed that with a simple, empathetic act: He listened. And then we all did. <\/p>\n\n

In 1970, Payne (1935-2023) made sure the world finally paid attention to the “Songs of the Humpback Whale<\/a>.\u201d Payne\u2019s landmark 35-minute album of recorded whale song in the wild deepened humanity\u2019s connection with the natural world, catalyzed the global movement to stop commercial whaling, and had a lasting impact on the growing ecology movement, including Greenpeace.  <\/p>\n\n

Payne, who passed away in June at age 88 at his home in Vermont, founded Ocean Alliance<\/a> in 1971 and was an inspiration and friend to Greenpeace activists during and far beyond the iconic \u201cSave The Whales\u201d campaign<\/a> that garnered international in the 1970s and played a key role in the adoption of a commercial whaling moratorium in 1986<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

\n<\/lite-youtube>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n

Born in New York City, educated at Harvard and Cornell, Payne\u2019s pioneering whale song recordings and decades of study of their communications have arguably done more to dispel the Moby Dick myth of the violent and solitary whale than anything else. His first record of what he described as an “exuberant, uninterrupted rivers of sound,\u201d made with the help of researcher Scott McVay, would go on to sell more than 100,000 copies<\/a>, making it the bestselling environmental album of all time.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cMy idea was, if you can move people emotionally, you can also get them to act,\u201d Payne told Nautilus<\/a> in 2021. \u201cTo see if I was right, I started playing humpback whale sounds to friends and other small audiences, and soon it became very clear that these sounds moved people deeply. In fact, some friends wept when they heard them\u2014they\u2019re that powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

\"Humpback
A humpback whale and calf (megaptera novaeangliae) are in the South Pacific Ocean.
\u00a9 Doug Perrine \/ SeaPics.com<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

\u2018A tool to bring whales into everyone’s living rooms\u2019<\/h2>\n\n

Among those deeply moved by Payne\u2019s recordings were present and future Greenpeace activists, including R\u00e9mi Parmentier<\/a>. A founding member of Greenpeace International and campaigner aboard the Rainbow Warrior during the anti-whaling voyages of the 1970s and early 1980s, Parmentier recalls Payne\u2019s first album of whale song being a part of his welcome package. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cWhen I joined in 1976 the international campaign to protect whales, I was given a cardboard box filled with documents and books for my induction,\u201d Parmentier recalls. \u201cAmong them was Roger Payne\u2019s record \u2018Songs of the Humpback Whale\u2019 which had been released in 1970 in the U.S., but which had never been marketed in France (and probably not in the rest of Europe either, except maybe a few dozen copies in some rare vintage record shops in London). After listening to whale sounds for the first time I understood how powerful the record was as a tool to bring whales into everyone’s living rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

\"Rainbow
Rainbow Warrior crew holding banner “Save the Whales”.
\u00a9 Greenpeace \/ Jean Paul Ferrero<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Not only was Parmentier personally moved by Payne\u2019s recording, but he quickly became committed to widening its audience.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cSo, each time I was invited by a radio station to speak about our campaign for a moratorium on commercial whaling, I\u2019d carry under my arm my copy of Roger Payne\u2019s record, and it blew the journalists\u2019 minds and their audience’s. Just after we bought the Rainbow Warrior in 1977, ready to set sail in 1978 to stop whaling fleets in the Atlantic Ocean, I called the CEO of the French subsidiary of Capitol Records and proposed that they release the record in France,\u201d Parmentier says. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cMaxime Schmitt was his name and I was lucky that he espoused the project wholeheartedly. He asked me to write in French the cover, back cover and a leaflet which was inserted inside the record envelope, featuring Greenpeace and the Rainbow Warrior mission to ban commercial whaling. Dozens of thousands copies were sold in French record shops and on the Greenpeace-France merchandise catalogue in 1978 and in the following years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

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\ud83e\uddf56 of 9\ud83d\udc33Schmitt asked me to write in French the cover, back cover & a leaflet which was inserted inside the record envelope, featuring the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior mission to save the whales. It became a blockbuster in French record shops & on the Greenpeace-France catalogue. pic.twitter.com\/jqVkhP61Go<\/a><\/p>— Remi Parmentier (@RemiParmentier) June 12, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote>