Not all songs inspired by Mother Nature are about Mother Nature

Flowers, gardens and rivers have inspired countless songs. But they can also be used to talk about spirituality, escaping fame, childhood and even drug addiction.

“FLAME TREES” – COLD CHISEL

Drummer Steve Prestwich wrote the melody on a bass and personally passed the lyrics on to keyboardist Don Walker.

It took Walker 18 months to come up with the idea, but when he did, he completed it in two afternoons at his apartment in Kings Cross, Sydney.

The idea of ​​flame trees comes from Grafton in northern New South Wales, where every spring the rainforest tree Brachychiton acerifolius (the Illawarra Flame Tree) would transform the place into a firework of orange (“set this city on fire”).

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Walker grew up on a farm outside Grafton (“We shared a piece of history, this city and I”).

Here he grew up with the record collection of his father, a harmonica player, and learned to play the piano so he could jam with the old man.

When Walker heard Prestwich’s melody, he knew it had to contain dramatic lyrics.

In the story, a girl returns to her small town after having success in the big city and getting a ride in a truck.

“Flame Trees” is open to many interpretations. One is that Walker was nervous when Cold Chisel split up in a fight and was thinking about what he wanted to do afterward.

After years of devoting himself to the band, he admitted to having no plans for what he would do afterward, and the song’s lyrical mood was about “the emptiness and vacuum that would follow the split from Chisel.”

“LOTUS FLOWER” – RADIOHEAD

The first single from The King of Limbs (2011), “Lotus flower” (also known as sacred lotus) was named after the national flower of India and Vietnam.

In ancient Asian literature, the lotus is a divine symbol of sexual purity and supreme feminine virtues.

On the other hand, the oldest lotus flower is 1,300 years old and was found in a dried-up lake in China, which may have a connection to the title of the album.

It referred to a 1,000-year-old oak tree in Savernake Forest in Wiltshire, a few miles from Tottenham House, where the band had spent much of their In Rainbows Album and a commentary on survival.

“IN THE GARDEN” – GUNS N’ ROSES

This collaboration between the Gunners and Alice Cooper also allows for many textual interpretations.

The most common claim is that the garden is the happy experience of drug use. People think it is paradise.

But the character in the song knows that it is dangerous to enter the garden (“Became my worst phobia/ A madman’s utopia”).

But all his friends are there and he can’t resist joining them.

“FOR THE ROSES” – JONI MITCHELL

It was written after Joni Mitchell left show business for the first time because she felt the pressure of being in the spotlight and dealing with an “unfair, crooked business that has nothing to do with real talent.”

When she returned in 1972 after a twelve-month break, she explained the song to the audience at New York’s Carnegie Hall: “It comes from the expression ‘running after the roses.'”

“Do you know what that means? It’s when you take this horse, it charges into the finish line, you throw a wreath of flowers around its neck and then one day they take it out and shoot it.

“That’s a pretty macabre statement, isn’t it?”

““BLUE ORCHID” – THE WHITE STRIPES

The song links the biblical story of Eve biting into an apple in the Garden of Eden with the Russian child porn website Blue Orchid, where the line “You took a white orchid and made it blue“ summarizes how they have permanently destroyed the lives of the once pure.

The video shows British model Karen Elson biting into a white apple and immediately seeing black spots appear on her body.

Elson and Jack White met while filming a video and married a few weeks later during a South American tour.

Within eight years, they separated, there were custody disputes, and she obtained a restraining order against him.

“NORTHERN RIVERS” – PAUL KELLY

“Water is very common in my songs,” said Paul Kelly. “I live in Port Philip Bay (in Melbourne) and when I’m at home I go to the sea several times a week if I can.”

“When I travel and visit new cities, I always look for water, be it a river, a lake, a canal, the sea or a swimming pool.”

From his water composition Rivers and rain came “Northern Rivers”, “a love song set in contrasting landscapes (in regional NSW) about a mysterious girl”.

Kelly revealed that the song came together quickly: “I showed it to the band and it came out really easily, like they had been playing it forever.”

“LITTLE POPPIES” – COURTNEY BARNETT

This seven-minute song from Courtney Barnett’s debut album Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit thereIt wasn’t about the flower associated with ANZAC Day, but about the tall poppy syndrome that the Melbourne singer-songwriter was confronted with.

She sings: “I don’t know exactly who I am, but man, I’m trying/I’m gonna make mistakes until I get it right.”

But when the album came out, there was no tall poppy syndrome. It peaked at number 4 in the Australian charts, number 16 in the UK and number 20 in the US.

“IN THE GARDEN” – VAN MORRISON

The grumpy Irish troubadour combines life in the garden with the search for spirituality, philosophy and the inner self.

“No guru, no method, no teacher/ Just you and me and nature/ And the Father in the garden.”

According to Morrison, the song is based on a type of transcendental meditation that takes about ten minutes for a person to calm down.

“WILDFLOWER” – THE AVALANCHES

The Melbourne band named their first album in 16 years Wildflowerwho describes the title song 1.14 as “a certain type of person, a free spirit”.

“BLOOM” – TROYE SIVAN

“It’s about flowers!” said Australian pop singer Troye Sivan in interviews with a wink about the title song of his 2018 album.

In the video, included in the app released with the single, Sivan is seen looking into the camera and insisting that “it’s about flowers” ​​while sitting in a bed with his then-boyfriend Jacob Bixenman sleeping behind him.

Sivan actually uses the metaphor of someone entering a walled garden with the loss of his virginity.

He revealed: “Lyrically, I think it’s the most subversive queer song on the album. That’s what I like about it so much – it’s almost like a little inside joke.”

“GREEN RIVER” – Creedence Clearwater Revival

“Green River” was considered part of Creedence’s “Southern Rock”, which also included “Proud Mary” and “Born On The Bayou”.

The truth is that group leader and chief songwriter John Fogerty had never been to the American South.

“‘Green River’ is actually about this place I used to go to as a child, on Putah Creek, near Winters, California,” Fogerty revealed to the American television series Storyteller.

“I went there every year with my family until I was ten years old. I have many fond memories there.

“I learned to swim there. There was a rope hanging from the tree. There must have been dragonflies, bullfrogs.”

“We lived in a little cabin that belonged to a descendant of the Wild West legend Buffalo Bill Cody. That’s the reference to Cody Jr. in the song. (“Up in Cody’s camp I spent my days…”).

The title “Green River” stayed true to his childhood theme and came from a brand of green lime flavored syrup that he loved back then.

“BLEEDING THE ORCHID” – DESTROYING PUMPKINS

The song from the seventh studio album by the Smashing Pumpkins Zeitgeist is about the commercialization of alternative rock of the 90s and is inspired by the deaths of Kurt Cobain of Nirvana and Layne Staley of Alice in Chains.

Frontman Billy Corgan explained: “When I heard ‘Orchid’ I realized it was a detached commentary on what happened to the bands of the 90s.

“The song even contains a little homage to Alice in Chains in the harmonies.

“Alice in Chains is a band that I appreciate much more today than when we were all so ambitious.

“I also thought a lot about Kurt Cobain and what we had all been through as a collective and the battle-torn feeling that came with it.

“I asked myself what our contribution was as a generation.

“I’m very close to Courtney Love. I know the negative impact of this time. I see what she’s going through and the impact it’s having on (Love and Cobain’s daughter) Francis Bean.”

“Anyone can talk about the Kurt on a T-shirt, but they’re still real people. So in a way this song is a cost estimate.”

“FLOWER ON THE WATER” – JOHN WILLIAMSON

In 2003, then Australian Prime Minister John Howard invited country singer and songwriter John Williamson to the first memorial service for the Bali bombings in Bali, where he sang “Waltzing Matilda” at the site of the attack.

Later, the Australian group took part in a second official ceremony on the beach.

Williamson recalls: “Balinese people in canoes and Australians on surfboards carried flowers out to sea to float on the water as the sun went down.

“It was quite a healing process. Afterwards we strolled past the photos and wreaths next to the bomb site.

“Here I copied out four lines that were attached to a photo. I felt that maybe I could write a song that could also support the healing process.”

The lines were:

“To hear your voice, to see you smile

To sit and talk with you for a while

Being together in the same old way

That would be our greatest wish today.”

For the tenth anniversary, Williamson returned to Bali to sing “Flower On The Water.” In Australia, it has become a song sung at funerals.

“DEAD FLOWERS” – THE ROLLING STONES

Recorded ten days after the Rolling Stones’ disastrous free concert in Altamont, California, during which a man was shot dead by Hells Angels hired by the band as security, this melancholy country song was meant to be a kind of exorcism.

The story was about a bitter breakup with a woman named Suzie, the queen of the underground.

“Then when you’re sitting in your pink Cadillac, I’ll be in my basement room with a needle and a spoon and another girl to ease my pain.” home with one blow “Send me dead flowers for my wedding and I will not forget to put roses on your grave.”

“CRIMSON & CLOVER” – TOMMY JANES AND THE SHONDELLS

Since the US pop band’s 1968 psychedelic pop song reached number 1 in the US and most European countries (number 4 in Australia), numerous interpretations have emerged.

The two songwriters aren’t much help. James said the song is a combination of his favorite color – purple – and his favorite flower – clover.

Drummer Peter Lucia Jr. claimed he came up with the phrase after watching a high school football game between the New Jersey teams Crimson and Hopatcong (Green or Clover).

Perhaps the greatest of all, Mort Garson’s Plantasia from Mother Earth is music for plants. Read more here.