STEPHEN BAIRD (AND SON!) Wow Winter Solstice Celebration with Wonderful, Witty Songs

San Diego Humanist

1999 Humanist Association Review: STEPHEN BAIRD (AND SON!) WOW WINTER SOLSTICE CELEBRATION WITH WONDERFUL, WITTY SONGS

This year’s Winter Solstice potluck and party was not just a wonderful time with really good Humanist friends, really good food, and really good discussions, it featured the best entertainment offered at a HASD solstice celebration ever: Dr. Stephen Baird and son, who both sang and played their guitars, delighting all who attended the Annual meeting with their wonderful Humanist Gospel songs. The program featured such secular songs as “There’s a Big Black Hole in Heaven,” “It’s Just Gas,” “I’m Satisfied with Science,” and “Prayer or Penicillin,” set to old-time gospel music, as well as a number of seasonal delights set to old familiar Christmas songs. Our warmest thanks to the Bairds, who provided us with wonderful, secular, and thoughtful entertainment, and a rousing good time.

According to the information provided in the CD of Stephen Baird’s music, “Hallelujah! Evolution!” that was available at the potluck, “Stephen Baird was born in Boston during WWII and raised for twelve years in the Bible belt, where he grew up on country and gospel music. After moving to California and attending Stanford University, he underwent a conversion to rationalism. Almost immediately, he noticed a lack of scientific gospel music. … After acquiring a modicum of competence on the guitar in the 1980’s, he acquired the habit of reducing medical and other scientific concepts to popular song form. … This led to a relatively large body of material on such arcane subjects as cytokines, interleukins, gene function, chromosome structure, cellular immunology, and so on. Occasionally more cosmic subjects such as the Big Bang or black holes caught his attention.” These more general songs (including a delightful ditty about chocolate) comprise most of the songs in their CD.