Back to it: This Garden

Sorry to have been away for so long, lots of life happening including a job loss unfortunately...there will be a song about that don't you worry! The posts also got a little sidetracked into coverage of festivals etc. and got away from the original purpose of telling what's behind some of my songwriting and hopefully helping to unlock the process for some of you...

Although I haven't recorded the song "This Garden" on CD yet, any of you who have seen me perform will have probably heard it. It starts out

I'm tillin' up this garden
back-breaking work
A little more than I bargained for
being a kid from the suburbs

My mother's father was a farmer,
carpenter, man of the sea.
These days I wish there was a
little more of him inside of me.

The song did originate as I was struggling with a rented rototiller trying desperately to create a patch of velvety furrowed earth from the conglomerate of granite, clay, glass, pot shards, old hardware and whatever else makes up the soil in the yard of my old Maine farmhouse!

While my parents were decidedly arty - mother a painter, father a theatrical agent, my mother did hale from hearty stock. My maternal grandparents had a small farm in Orange county NY, had built houses during the Depression (the first one not the current one!) , and I remember as a small child digging worms, scaling fish, and riding a tractor with my grandfather. Until I moved out of my parents house I could still find his old hand tools on our work bench. Unfortunately as is typical of kids I failed to appreciate my grandparent's simple but impressive skills, preferring the glow of television, the shiney, noisy and the new. By the time I was old enough for reason to take hold, my grandfather was gone. I honestly hadn't thought much about him in years, but as I stood there swearing at the rocks and roots, I did, and I wished I could have asked his advice.