Brendan Boyd, a Denver-based aerospace engineer and songwriter performing as B. Boyd, has released The Dragon Smog, a narrative-driven single that recontextualises the climate crisis as a high-fantasy beast. Originally part of his latest album Turmeric (released 13 March 2026), the track is receiving a significant visual re-launch on 27 April with a hand-animated music video and bespoke art by local dragon-specialist Anna Grapengeter.
The project represents a calculated collision between technical data and mythic folklore. Boyd, who holds a Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from CU Boulder and currently works as a software engineer in the Denver Tech Center, spent years wrestling with the “crushing helplessness” of global environmental challenges. He identifies this modern anxiety as a “dragon” of our era – a metaphor that bridges the gap between scientific reality and speculative fiction.
The Bard vs. The Algorithm
While Boyd’s professional life is rooted in the precision of Denver’s tech sector, his musical persona assumes the role of a traditional bard. In traditional roleplaying games, bards are the primary carriers of truth, warning townsfolk of approaching threats. By choosing to hand-animate the music video himself and explicitly avoiding generative AI, Boyd makes a statement on human agency. In a world where scientists and engineers struggle to have their “signals” heard over corporate and media noise, the act of a human hand drawing a dragon becomes an act of journalistic defiance.
From Smaug to Smog
The lyrical heart of the track draws a direct line to J.R.R. Tolkien. Boyd identified a linguistic pun in Smaug, the hoard-guarding dragon of The Hobbit, connecting the creature’s fire and greed to the modern challenge of “smog” and carbon emissions.
Brendan Boyd said in a statement:
I suspect that a lot of the ‘dragons’ of yore were actually metaphors for difficult challenges that the people of those eras faced. I was thinking of Tolkien’s ‘Smaug’ from The Hobbit and realised there was a great pun there to tie him into the modern challenge of smog and other pollution. With the further relationship of dragons to heat and fire, which also relates to climate change, I knew that this was a great opportunity to write something profound that could really resonate.”
The song’s resolution was inspired by the book What If We Get It Right by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. Boyd had struggled with the track’s ending for years until encountering the book’s vision of a successful, transformed world. The result is a closing call to action that asks listeners to imagine a future where the “dragon” is slain through collective human resolve.
The Mythic Connection
The release arrives shortly after Denver’s tabletop community gathered for Genghis Con in Aurora this February. The region is increasingly a hub where high-tech industry meets mythic storytelling, a trend Boyd embodies. From his upbringing in Thornton to his technical work in the Tech Center, his narrative arc mirrors a community grappling with the reality of living in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains’ changing climate.
