In this edition of The Exchange, we bring together the introspective melodies of musician Caroline Says and the field observations of primatologist Prof. Aaron Sandel. Caroline Says asks about what studying wild chimpanzees has revealed about human society, emotions, and the essential nature of our shared existence as apes. In return, Sandel poses a deeply resonant question about the connection between music and emotion. inviting Caroline Says to explore how her songwriting and performance tap into and transform the emotional landscape. What follows is a rich dialogue that spans the Ugandan forests to the inner workings of creative expression.
Caroline Sallee, known professionally as Caroline Says, is an American singer-songwriter celebrated for her introspective lyrics and ethereal soundscapes. Originally from Huntsville, Alabama, she moved to Austin, Texas, where she launched her music career. Her discography includes three critically acclaimed albums: 50,000,000 Million Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2014), No Fool Like an Old Fool (2018), and The Lucky One (2024). Her latest album, influenced by the pandemic and themes of memory and resilience, has been praised for its emotional depth and clarity. Known for her Lou Reed-inspired moniker and comparisons to artists like Beach House and Mazzy Star, Caroline Says blends nostalgia and innovation in her music, capturing the complexities of human emotion.
Aaron A. Sandel is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin and Co-Director of the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project. Since 2012, he has conducted extensive fieldwork in Uganda, focusing on chimpanzee behavior to gain insights into social bonds and the emotions that underpin them. His interdisciplinary research integrates social neuroscience, psychology, and biology, employing methodologies such as network analysis, machine learning, and endocrinology to explore the formation, maintenance, and dissolution of social relationships. Through his work, Sandel aims to address contemporary issues like loneliness, polarization, and conflict by deepening our understanding of the social connections that hold communities together.
CAROLINE SAYS: What is something you’ve learned about humans from studying chimps in the wild? What are the similarities between the wild chimp society you observe and human society? What thoughts do you think chimps have about humans? If you could be a wild chimp instead of human, would you choose to and why/why not?
AARON SANDEL: By studying chimpanzees, I’ve learned how little we know about the human experience. Take social relationships, for example. That’s the focus of my research: how are close relationships formed, maintained, and, sometimes, fall apart? I spend all my free time—summers when I’m not teaching—in a forest in Uganda studying a population of wild chimpanzees.
To really understand the variety of relationships in chimpanzees, we need to first think about what relationships mean for us. What do we mean when we talk about friendship? How do we distinguish friendship from other relationships, like acquaintances or allies? Not enough research is devoted to friendship in humans, so it’s not straightforward to answer. And because we lack a clear concept of friendship, we tend to overlook it in our lives despite its importance, and despite the fact that it’s a key antidote to the crisis of loneliness we are facing.
By studying chimpanzees, I’ve also realized that so much of what we think of as human behavior is probably just ape behavior. Even little gestures or postures, like the way we rest our ankle on our knee, or the way we absentmindedly wipe our nose when we’re anxious.
Humans are apes. Accepting that we are apes, and so much of our behavior is just that of an ape, could be important when thinking about human psychology, economics, and politics. We are capable of such creativity, and we use technology, and we have complex language. But most of the time we are just working from our ape brain. I’m just making this up, but it’s probably like 80% of our behavior is just ape behavior, and only 20% is human. Psychology, economics, history, and philosophy only study that 20% that relies on language, and assumes we are acting in a way that reflects what we are capable of, rather than how we actually behave on a daily basis, and the real motivations underlying those behaviors.
Part of this thinking is inspired by work on chimps. Because they don’t have anything like language. They hoot and grunt and make very complex gestures to each other. But they don’t speak. And they don’t communicate in obvious ways when they are coordinating some of their most complex activities, like going on a patrol to the edge of their territory in search of stranger chimps. Or on the rare occasions that they meet the stranger chimps, and they attack and kill them. How do they do that without language?
So much of chimpanzee behavior, and all animal behavior—including human behavior, is driven by emotions. Here’s another challenge, though: we don’t really know what emotions are. Psychologists don’t agree. I asked one preeminent psychologist at my university recently. “It’s a fucking mess,” he said. And I try not to swear. But it’s interesting that we don’t really have an agreed upon theory of emotions. I want one so I can use it to study chimpanzees. And then I could distinguish between friends and acquaintances and political allies, which may all look the same on the surface, from behavior alone.
That leads me to my question for you.
AARON SANDEL: Why do you think music is linked to our emotions? How does writing a song and playing music tap into your emotional life, and potentially change it?
CAROLINE SAYS: The effect music has on emotions is one of the great mysteries of life. I think if I were able to answer why certain sounds or combinations of sounds can give me chills and watery eyes, it’d make discovering those combinations of sounds less fun or rewarding. The mystery is what makes it never boring. To put it scientifically, music is like magic.
I’ve often wondered if I was a Nell-like character who grew up alone in the woods and was deprived of pop radio growing up, would I still have an instinct to make music myself? My hypothesis is: yes. There are natural rhythms in everything, in our own bodies, in our heartbeats, in our footsteps, and we aren’t the only creatures who create melodies, so I think I would have figured it out and just started making vocal melodies and rhythms with sticks and rocks if I was Nell. Making music is an innate emotional expression in me.
I’ve kept myself purposefully dumb about “understanding” music. I call myself a guitar player, I call myself a musician, but sometimes I feel like I don’t know that much, and in an academic sense, I definitely don’t. Learning about folk music when I was first playing guitar helped me realize not knowing what you’re doing is okay, so I stopped thinking of it in any other way except an expression. I make up chords all the time, and have no idea what I’m doing. I play in open tunings. I write from feeling, and not from a formula. I study music all the time, listen to it all the time, sometimes sit down and try to emulate a song I love, but I can’t articulate what I’m doing. Writing music all comes from a feeling, my ears and the sounds I hear, and memorizing where I put my fingers and what vocal melody I come up with that moves me most. I don’t know theory. I’ve done this because I’m afraid of ruining my ability to write from a feeling. I want it to remain a mystery. It’s a language I can only speak to myself.
Something these questions have made me think about is why certain sounds automatically make me feel a certain way or represent certain emotions. When I first started playing guitar, I called minor chords “scary chords.” They are scary! I think every child would agree that minor chords sound scarier and sadder than major chords. Is this learned or is it born in us?
And if a minor chord sounds scary or sad, why are we still drawn to them? Why does a “sad” song sometimes make me feel “good”? I think a simple answer is just because feelings are what make us feel alive.
I saw a clip of Nick Cave on a talk show recently and he said, “Music is a thing that makes things better. It’s one of the last legitimate opportunities we have for a transcendent experience.” I rarely believe in God, but when I do, it usually has to do with the feeling I get when I make and play music, or get lost in any creative activity, and especially when I am getting lost in a song I am writing. It’s probably the same feeling some people feel from religion and/or drugs. It’s a feeling people seek and live and die for. I think it’s the feeling that convinced Robert Johnson he sold his soul to the devil, and it does sometimes feel to me like something else is taking over. Getting lost in a song I’m writing feels like a euphoric meditation. Nothing in the world except what I’m doing matters, and I feel alive.
This is making me think of the scene in Peter Bogdanavich’s Maskwhere Rocky Dennis tries to describe colors to his blind girlfriend with hot or cold things. Describing an emotion is like trying to describe a color. I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to fully describe an emotion with words, and that’s something music does for us. According to John Cage (https://youtu.be/-EZ2vUBU8Qo?t=196), Immanuel Kant said “There are two things that don’t have to mean anything: one is music, and the other is laughter.” I like that quote. I think it’s impossible to fully articulate why music makes life better or why or how it has the transcendent effect it does, and there’s a beauty in that darkness. It would be easier to explain an emotion with a song.
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