Harmony: Science and Song

00:00:13.03 MH: Hi, my name is Melissa Hendershott and I'm a graduate student at UCSF.
00:00:16.13 Today I'm here with Jim Farrell who is a professor at Stanford.
00:00:20.09 He is also a member of several rock bands and today he's going
00:00:23.02 to talk about his experiences in science AND in music.
00:00:26.29 When did you first start playing music?
00:00:29.07 JF: 1964, right in the Beatles invasion.
00:00:34.02 I had this friend who had a ukulele, and who taught me how to play the ukulele.
00:00:38.14 MH: How have you managed to integrate music into your life outside of science
00:00:44.07 and sort of fit that into all your scientific endeavors?
00:00:47.12 JF: It's hard to fit it into either normal life or into scientific life,
00:00:53.22 because it takes time; other things suffer. But you get pleasure out of it. And it's a good thing.
00:01:05.02 Song: "Everybody is suffering"
00:04:01.03 MH: So did you play music all throughout your graduate career?
00:04:04.02 JF: Not quite all. I showed up at medical school presuming that I was entering
00:04:11.14 this serious grown up world where I would do nothing but study my histology and pathology.
00:04:19.15 And I was pretty serious for about two years,
00:04:24.10 doing research and making a little bit of progress towards my PhD thesis.
00:04:30.29 But then bad things happened in my second year. All the premises that
00:04:38.25 my PhD thesis were based on turned out to be wrong. I didn't really
00:04:44.21 have a good idea of something to work on and some other bad things happened in my life,
00:04:49.11 so I thought, you know, I'd just try this band thing one last time,
00:04:56.07 as a way of maybe introducing some happiness back into my life.
00:05:01.18 And it stuck.
00:05:06.26 MH: How did you meet your band mates?
00:05:08.25 JF: Most of them I met back then when I was a graduate student.
00:05:12.21 So I've known those people for a long long time. I met my wife back then.
00:05:19.18 It was a really important decision as it turned out, this decision
00:05:24.03 to play in a band instead of devoting myself full time to my scholarly pursuits.
00:05:34.27 song: "I like your eyes"
00:07:33.04 MH: Can you tell us what some of the inspirations for your songs are?
00:07:36.20 JF: Well, let's see, "Everybody is suffering" was about the fact that
00:07:41.18 everybody I knew at that point seemed to be having big trouble
00:07:47.04 in their lives, but I was ok. Let's see, "Two Lindas" was about
00:07:52.08 this friend of mine who was dating two women named Linda
00:07:55.26 and love had not worked out for him.
00:07:57.27 I was hoping it would work out this time. And "I like your eyes" was about my wife
00:08:06.01 actually, because I liked her eyes. So you know just basic songs
00:08:14.03 saying true facts in one line after another.
00:08:19.17 MH: Could you tell us about some of the venues that your band has played at?
00:08:23.00 JF: Oh, we've played the biggest! Maybe the biggest being the
00:08:27.22 Department of Chemical and Systems Biologyâ€™s annual retreat.
00:08:32.08 It was fantastic, especially when I was department chair.
00:08:36.05 We could make the people dance, especially the young faculty.
00:08:40.10 If they wouldn't dance â€“ no tenure!
00:08:46.14 song: "Two Lindas"

This Talk

Speaker: James Ferrell

Recorded: February 2012

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Talk Overview

Jim Ferrell has been playing and writing music for years and he believes that playing in a band is important to his happiness. He tells a few stories of how music has influenced his life and he shares a few of his songs. His long time friends and band members are Dan Purtell and Missy Peabody.

About the interviewer: Melissa Hendershott is a graduate student in the Tetrad program at UCSF.

Speaker Bio

James Ferrell

When he is not making music, Jim Ferrell and his lab members investigate the interactions of the multiple proteins that regulate progression through the cell cycle. Ferrell is a Professor in the Department of Chemical and Systems Biology at Stanford School of Medicine. Learn more about Ferrell’s research on his lab page. Continue Reading