The title of Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring" equates life with sound, death with silence. Her book helped form the environmental movement by exposing the destructive consequences of chemical pesticides intended to kill insects to protect crops and reduce disease transmission. These chemicals also killed birds and other animals, silencing the many songs of life we associate with spring. We and other animals use sounds to communicate needs, seek mates, assess rivals, care for young, avoid predators, find food, eavesdrop on neighbours, and deceive others. At the same time, the noise that we and our machines make increasingly disrupts the acoustic world and damages health, adding an ironic twist to Carson's metaphor. I aim to initiate a book project that explores the sounds of life, choosing topics that span humans and other species, from tiny birds using vocal mimicry to deceive predators, to humans using voice training for political gain.