From the recording I'm in the Band
“An Improbability of Sooty Shearwater” is a song born from awe and motion—tens of thousands of seabirds sweeping through Monterey Bay, tracing migration routes that span the Pacific. Playful, rhythmic, and lightly irreverent, it holds wonder, environmental urgency, and joy side by side, letting movement lead where certainty can’t.
Lyrics
An improbability of Sooty Sooty Shearwater
An improbability of Sooty Sooty Shearwater
They fly 40,000 miles around the globe
Watch your head little fishies, down deep in the cold
A swarm as it forms, it stretches and it folds
That Hitchcock movie ain’t the future foretold!
An improbability of Sooty Sooty Shearwater
An improbability of Sooty Sooty Shearwater
They glide along the surface just an inch from the wave
A million strong, it’s a sooty sooty rave!
My life-long mate, a tītī tītī date
Only 600 miles to Monterey Bay
An improbability of Sooty Sooty Shearwater
An improbability of Sooty Sooty Shearwater
An improbability of Sooty Sooty Shearwater
An improbability of Sooty Sooty Shearwater
The Māori can make up a sustainable snack
The SS Palo Alto is a great white shack
Carbon’s on the rise, we gotta cut it back
The temperature rise—gonna make a sooty sooty life WACK
An improbability of Sooty Sooty Shearwater
An improbability of Sooty Sooty Shearwater
An improbability of Sooty Sooty Shearwater
An improbability of Sooty Sooty Shearwater