IUSS Soil Song

Music: “Boxturtle Bob” Chirnside
Lyrics: “Boxturtle Bob” Chirnside and Alfred Hartemink

(First sung at the closing ceremony of the 18th World Congress of Soil Science on 15th July 2006)

We call it soil
Chorus:
It is our life! We call it soil
It is the stuff, in which we toil
From soil we’ve sprung, to soil we’ll go
Protect the soil of this earth so we can grow

Verse I
From the podsols beneath snow drifts
To aridisols where few crops live
Soil is as varied, as the rainbow
And is as precious as a rainbow’s pot of gold

Chorus

Verse II
Some soils are dry, some soils are wet
Some soils are fertile and from them high yields you get
But if you don’t, give to the soil
Then you will not reap a thing for all your toil

Chorus

Verse III
We study chelates, leachates and porosity
We learn our muck and peat and mineralogy
Some study urban, some study rural
And we can tell just by the smell who’s in manural

Chorus

Verse IV
Soils are just like, humanity
With yellow, brown, red, black and white, you’ll see
That some are dull, and some are gray
And can fall prey to greed of man that’s our decay

Chorus

Verse V
A living world beneath our feet
It even lives, beneath our streets
With flora and fauna, so complete
That it can save us from the brownfields of defeat

Chorus (Out)