Friday, May 21, 2010

Rock Garden


The Rose Garden
Atco  1968  Mono in near-mint, $60, Stereo NM, $25
The Rose Garden was a short-lived southern California band in the "sunshine pop" folk rock tradition.  Their lone hit was "Next Plane to London" which reached #17 on the charts.
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My oldest son has a phenomenal green thumb and cultivates a truly lavish garden. http://www.farmerbobcomics.com/

Who knew?  I guess this must be one of those things that skips a generation.   My mother could make anything grow by sticking a brown twig of it into the dirt and my Dad was a farmer who always got good crops.  I, on the other hand, seem to kill everything, either by neglect or by trying to overcompensate for the last dead plant by watering the next one until the animals start to gather two-by-two looking for an ark.

But this year I’m trying it again.  I have a pressing need to see things flourish and I’m doing my best not to kill off the flowers and herbs I’m growing on my deck garden. Apparently, rockers get a hankering for a garden now and then, too. I’m on a quest for “garden” songs, lyrics, bands, etc.  Here’s a few from my itunes.  Can you help me add to the list?

“Amity Gardens”  from Utopia Parkway by Fountains of Wayne

“Evie’s Garden” from This Perfect World by Freedy Johnston

“Back to the Garden”  from Ordinary Seasons by Polecat Creek

“Eden was a Garden” from Oh Tall Tree in the Ear  by Roman Candle

“Everything in 2s” from How Does Your Garden Grow by Better Than Ezra

“The Garden”  from This Beautiful Mess by Sixpence None the Richer

“Gardening at Night” from The Attic by R.E.M.

“Gates of the Garden” from No More Shall We Part by Nice Cave & the Bad Seeds

“Grey Gardens” from Poses by Rufus Wainwright

“The Hanging Garden” from Staring at the Sea-The Singles…”  by The Cure

“Octopus’s Garden” from Abbey Road by The Beatles

“Rose Garden” from Street Angle by Stevie Nicks

“Rose in My Garden” from Karla Bonoff by Karla Bonoff

“The Secret Garden (Sweet Seduction Sweet) from Back on the Block by Quincy Jones

“The Garden Party” Ricky Nelson

“Empty Garden” Elton John

Band—Savage Garden

Garden State Soundtrack

 “Garden” by Pearl Jam: “…I will walk with my shadow flag into your garden, garden of stone…

 “The Garden”  by Gun’s ‘n’ Roses  “…Your friends they aren't at home/Everybody's gone to the garden/As you look into the trees/You can look but you don't see…”

 “Wicked Garden” by Stone Temple Pilots  “…I wanna run through your wicked garden/Heard that's the place to find ya…”

 “The Severed Garden” by The Doors  “…I'm sick of dour faces/Staring at me from the tv/Tower, I want roses in/My garden bower; dig?”

6 comments:

  1. Not sure if you have it up there, but there was a song in the 1970s "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden." (Did Stevie Nicks do a cover?)

    Two refrains that go through my mind when working in the yard, REM's "Flowers of Guatemala" (flowers cover everything) and "Green Grow the Rushes". The songs were impressed on my brain before I understood the lyrics. Not exactly about gardening, though the refrains seem at first hearing to be. The first song is about flowers covering the graves of genocide victims, and the second is about the exploitation of guest workers by gringos (green grows).

    Both Springsteen and Madonna have songs called "Secret Garden."

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  2. How about "Inch worm/ inch worm/ Measuring the marigolds..."? And what's the old round about "bright silver bells upon a slender stalk / Lilies of the valley line my garden walk"? Oh, Lord! Now that tune's gonna haunt me for the next week. Talk about ear worms!

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  3. Oh, oh, you SO need to include "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly! The song's title was originally "In The Garden Of Eden" but due to drinking, drugs and bad hearing it morphed into the eventual tile.

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  4. That's a great one Katy! I had forgotten that bit of recording lore. I recently heard "In-a-Gadda-De-Vida" used in a TV advertisement for some financial corporation. It was horrifying.

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  5. Does "They paved Paradise to put up a parking lot" qualify as sort of an antithesis of garden songs? Counting Crows cover of a Joni Mitchell song, of course. I don't know why this topic made me think of that one, other than it is an indirect reference to the archetypal garden.

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  6. That one popped into my head, too, Wilma. I guess for the same reason it occurred to you...seems to preclude the idea of anyone EVER having a garden again. Also thought of Joni MItchell's Woodstock..."we've got to get ourselves back to the garden"...though I think she meant WAY back to the original garden :) I believe CSN&Y did a cover of that as well. Or maybe it was just CS&N.

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