From: Tim Byron
Date: Sun Jan 14, 2001 2:49 pm
Subject: An entry for the 2001 Post Of The Year award.
No:3406
So this is, to quote Chris Hogan, another “ferenzic analysis” along
the lines of my “Owen’s Lament” analysis. Many of the ideas below were
the doing of Leila, who lurks on this list. We were discussing the
meaning of “Good Gardener” in emails, so i’ve basically cut and
pasted from the emails and cleaned it up a little.
“The Good Gardener (On How He Fell)” – the title illustrates that the
song is the “Good Gardener” persona Glenn is using in the song,
telling a story about how he fell from grace.
I’m not sure whether “The Good Gardener” is actually Glenn telling
about something that’s happened to him or is an imagined situation. My
guess is probably a little of both. Why is the metaphor of a gardener
used? The garden in this song is a metaphor for a relationship. One
can only be a good gardener if one is there to tend the garden, which
as the song relates, is not happening.
“Here sits a once good gardener, pale as a shadow of a doubt.
Once a happy dweller of a garden good, once a sleepy sinner.”
This is the persona of the Good Gardener starting his story, relating
how other people would be seeing him. The line ‘a once good gardener’
hints to the fact that he’s not a good gardener anymore. The line
“pale as a shadow of a doubt” is a play on words, on the phrase
“beyond a shadow of doubt” which is often used in TV courtroom dramas.
If something is certain and sure, metaphorically, it would be solid
and it’s shadow dark. While a shadow of a doubt, a small niggling
feeling that something is wrong, would hardly be there at all. This
imagery simultaneously shows that the good gardener is guilty about
something and that he is pale, that he has made a big mistake. When
“doubt” is used later in the verse it has a completely different
meaning, which is common in Augie March songs – “dimwit i was, and
dimmer i’ll be, if you dim all the lights” being one example.
The next two lines show that he was happy before, and reinforce that
the “garden” – a metaphor for the relationship the persona was having – was a good one. “Once a sleepy sinner” is a sexual reference. Now
that he has “fallen” he has realized he took the sex for granted.
“Once cast out
To the sea where the crossy-eyed maids murmur low, “do you see do you
see
where the doubts cross his shadow?”
Drowned and amoral, I pollinate the coral and reek of the deep
where I’ve tended the water weed – ”
In this section the story moves on to the point where the persona was
cast out of the
garden and into the sea – that is, he did something that he was guilty
of has meant that the other person in the “garden” has severed the
relationship. The sea is metaphorically a “lower” place (where he fell
to) where he gardens now. The sea is also much larger than his garden,
which reminds me of the idea that you can be a big fish in a little
pond and then become a little fish in a big pond. The sea is meant to
represent a big pond in that sense – he’s been cast out into the sea
from his little garden, which is a metaphor for how he’s not with one
woman any more but is basically sleeping around – with the “crossy
eyed maids” perhaps?
“The crossy eyed maids” is a reference to girls who have stars in
their eyes (is the resemblance between cross and star there, or am I
going too far?). Which could be a reference to Glenn being a rock
star. Their low murmurs mean that they’re talking about him, not to
him (obviously unsuccessfully). The doubts crossing his shadow is his
questioning his existence, in relation to his recently failed
relationship, or perhaps into the sexual promiscuity or new
relationship the song is about to suggest.
“Drowned and amoral” suggests he couldn’t keep his head afloat, that
the new situation in which he is in is too much for him. “Pollinate
the coral” is a sexual metaphor – pollen is effectively a plant’s
semen. As he’s just come from a garden to the sea…coral is a
primitive sea animal that resembles a plant in some ways. So he’s
“pollinating” girls who, in the metaphor, resemble plants – his good
garden, his ex – but who aren’t. The line “reek of the deep where I’ve
tended the water weed” is a reference to cunnilingus (along the lines
of “who’s going to taste your saltwater kisses” from Who’s Gonna Ride
Your Wild Horses by U2) , which extends on the idea in this section of
the song that he’s spreading his seed around.
“I was once your good gardener, sing to bring on Spring,
I know where your good grass grows,
I know what your boyfriend knows,
I was your good gardener”
Here he starts talking about the way things were. When he says he was
her good gardener he means that he was always there for her, knew the
intimate details about her only lovers (such as her new boyfriend)
would know. The line “sing to bring on Spring” is talking about how
his art, the song, has caused the new situation and sets up the next
verse.
“I saw twilight car waxers, corpulent dog walkers, clean canny couples
on the sunset strip
“From a tower forty miles to the east of Augusta saw a plague on the
Indian
a’coming on a windship ”
Here, the good gardener is talking all the things he saw while he was
touring Australia, before he was cast out of the garden; the “clean
canny couples” is given extra emphasis by the alliteration because it
reminded him of the relationship that he was missing whilst on tour;
The town Augusta is one of the most southerly points in Western
Australia, on the Indian ocean, emphasised perhaps to give emphasis on
how far the good gardener is away from Victoria. The reference to a
“windship” is a metaphor for something that brings change.
“You were in the garden when the wind swept up and took the foul
words from your mouth
Now you know what your sarcasm really really means
It’s the tearing with your teeth of the flesh from the bones of your
brother – ”
Here he explains the “fall.” While he was off seeing Australia, she
was in the garden – where they lived. “When the wind swept up and took
the foul words from your mouth” – wind is often a metaphor for change
(eg, that song by the Scorpions) and is referring to whatever events
made him and the ex break up. “The foul words” is referring to
something the ex-girlfriend said sarcastically. “Tearing with your
teeth of the flesh of from the bones of your brother” is a reference
to cannibalism, which, especially seeing it’s a blood relative being
cannibalised, is an act of desperation. Perhaps this is a reference to
how there were problems in the relationship before he was “cast out
into the sea.”
“Kill the shrub to fertilise the flower,
Did I hear you saying that the form doesn’t matter?
Well form into matter, the matter is forever, but only in a good
garden”
This section seems to make the most sense to me if it is the “foul
words” of his ex-girlfriend mentioned in the verse. “Killing the shrub
in order to fertilize the flower” – I feel that the shrub is a
metaphor for his musical career. She is the flower – the garden being
the place where she lives, which includes her interactions with
everyone else.. and the gardener being the one who takes care of all
that. She is basically making an ultimatum that to fertilise the
flower – to keep that relationship going – he’d have to stop being a
musician.
The form is the order and form in the garden, the relationship – the
way she thinks it should be. The good gardener’s protests that “the
form doesn’t matter”- that love is love even if he’s 3000km away
watching clean canny couples – are mocked. “Well form into matter”
Here again Glenn plays with the meaning of words. She is asking him to
form into matter – to teleport away from Augusta and back to her arms.
“The matter is forever” has a double meaning – his physical presence,
his matter is what matters to her, and that it matters absolutely.
“But only in a good garden” – a garden can only be good if it’s
gardener is there to tend it – the relationship can only be a good
garden if it has what she wants.
“Black rock bound in the Brighton bowl where the seas of desolation
roll,
Where you’re borne and borne and borne in again to the pebble-feather
shore
of forgotten friends”
He explains how he is like a black rock bound into the seas of
desolation – that is, he is a bit down because his relationship has
just ended. As he can no longer live in the garden, he is living on
the couches of forgotten friends, and by the repetition of “borne” he
makes it clear he has been doing so for a while (guests and fish stink
after 3 days.)
“Think how you can’t see the science without seeing first the self,
But then nobody thinks of growing somebody else,
And how the sun, hungry sun, holds the withered withered world,
So why shouldn’t I kiss the beautiful girl?”
In a way the idea that you can’t “see the science without seeing the
self” is straightforward (ie, science only being a branch of
philosophy) but it is a metaphor for his music. He’s saying that she
has become unable to divorce his music from what she knows of his
personality. Then he tells himself “But then nobody thinks of growing
somebody else,” going back to the imagery of her being a flower,
suggesting that she’s not letting him grow as a person (presumably by
going out and experiencing the world.) He uses these reasons to
justify kissing “the beautiful girl,” who could possibly be the plague
on a windship in Augusta he was talking about.
“When I was her good gardener, sing of the Summer sham,
O see them grow tall, see them in their rot, see them go to seed in
the cemetery plot
I was your good gardener, sing to bring on Spring
O ice of Winter would crackle and splinter with my love in everything
Ice of Winter would crackle and splinter with my love in everything
I was your good gardener… ”
The references to Summer, Spring and Winter are metaphorical. When he
was her good gardener, he sang of “the Summer sham” – he was singing
songs about their love. The “ice of winter” line is talking about
something that happens in most gardens – in winter a garden is
generally not as bright and colourful as it is in summer. In this
section of the song Glenn is saying that although the good gardener
was pretending that the relationship was in full bloom, a “Summer”, it
was in reality going through a “Winter,” an icy period.
“The sea is stark and lovely, and it scares me to the point of
rapture
I was your good gardener, of some good stature
The sea is stark and lovely, and it scares me to the point of rapture
I was your good gardener. Now I – can barely – look at ya.”
Here he goes back to talking about the sea. It scares him to be in
the position he is, away from her. But at the same time, the sea has
an innate beauty – a lovely bareness – that a garden doesn’t have. In
other words, he can see the advantages of casual sex. He repeats that
he was her good gardener, “of some good stature” – he was good at
being her boyfriend. I like the line “Now I can barely look at ya” –
after all these gardening metaphors, it’s blunt and to the point.
tim.
From: Matt High
Date: Tue Jan 16, 2001 9:43 am
Subject: Interpretting The Good Gardener
No:3431
I’m pretty sure “The Good Gardener” is about Don Burke from Burke’s
Backyard.
“Kill the shrub to fertilise the flower” means he killed the shrub, in order
to fertilize the flower.
“Pebble-feathered shore” means Don used Pebblemix inlaid with seagull
feathers to coat the surrounds of a pool that he and the team from Backyard
Blitz renovated while the owners were on a golf weekend.
“You were in the garden when the wind swept up, and took the foul words from
your mouth” was about the time, (oh, how we laughed), when Don was filming a
segment on birdbaths in Charnwood, Canberra, when a huge gust of wind blew
over the birdbath next to him and dumped months and months of bird droppings
on his nicely laundered Country Road casual wear. He was flailing around the
yard saying “F…” this and “F…” that…
“Now I can barely look at ya”
Is referring to the canteen lady at Channel Nine who’s eloctrolysis didnt
take so she simply gave up on removing her facial hair. when Don lines up
for his corned beef and mash he simply can’t look at her.
Look, I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure the above is what Glenn was
trying to say in the song,
Matt
(i mean no disrespect to the well-thought out and extensive interpretations
by Tim and Co, believe me. I’m just feeling mischievous this morning)
From: Cathy
Date: Tue Jan 16, 2001 2:05 am
Subject: Re: [augiemarch] An entry for the 2001 Post Of The Year award.
No:3427
Hello all,
I guess the first thing to say is that I agree with Huw’s interpretation of the
Good Gardener’s narrator as not being the actual partner of the lady of the
good garden. Pretty much because that’s the way the song initially struck me.
Infact the word “voyeuristic” came to mind.
I really admire Tim’s interpretation but I prefer not to think of the song as a
song about Glenn himself, simply because that’s the way I’d like to do the
interpretation (and I don’t actually know much about the man himself). The sex
aspect has also been quite thoroughly and thoughtfully done, so I’ll prolly
stay away from that (even if it means that Liz stops reading now;p)
[Oh yeah, the disclaimer is that it is a personal opinion, more likely than not
it isn’t what Glenn intended. ]
The short of it:
I guess to understand where I’m coming from you have to have an idea of what’s
the set up is in my head. Basically, two guys, one girl. The “gardener”
(singer of the song), the girl the gardener loves, the girls “official”
boyfriend. The gardener and the girl are close friends, but the gardener is
“in love” with the girl and she does not really reciprocate despite the fact
they have real friendship and tenderness. Because he is in love with her he
romaticises and idealises her and their relationship to an extent The
boyfriend probably isn’t really as compatible with her as the gardener but she
feels passionately about the former. During the song the gardener has to deal
with his unrequited love, first a bit bitter, lastly reconciled with what he
has learnt from the process.. Its the story of the really nice guy who never
gets the girl…
(sound like a blurb of a Mills & Boon?, better be more explicit then…;))
Anyway if you’ll indulge me, on to the blow by blow commentary;)
The long of it:
The song starts off with the gardener looking longingly back at the place he
was cast out of, ye old garden, and trying to come to terms with where he is at
the moment. The garden is once of the most ancient symbols of paradise, the
casting out the garden (fall from grace) is also a very recognisable story. re
His relationship with “the girl of the garden”: he’s been forced to take his
rosy glasses off.
>“Here sits a once good gardener, pale as a shadow of a doubt.
shadow of a doubt implies that by the look of him now you might not believe
that he could have been a good gardener. The juxtaposition of pale and shadow
sounds like even though he’s fallen from grace, his longing for the garden
means he hasn’t really become good at (enjoying) being bad either.
>Once a happy dweller of a garden good, once a sleepy sinner.”
The sins he committed weren’t consciously bad things. Sort of along the lines
as you can’t feel shame until you have knowledge of what shame in. Before this
“incident” he was quite innocent and I think ignorant. Maybe this is the first
time he has thought himself to be in love. He thought everything would turn
out like the movies. The sleepiness makes it seem like the whole garden
scenario now seems like a dream or an illusion. In fact he was deluded.
>“Once cast out
>To the sea where the crossy-eyed maids murmur low, “do you see do you
>see
>where the doubts cross his shadow?”
>Drowned and amoral, I pollinate the coral and reek of the deep
>where I’ve tended the water weed – ”
Having been outed, he’s at the place opposite to the garden: the sea and as
previously discussed he’s doing all sorts of fun things;)
Crossy-eyed maids makes me think of star crossed lovers; other people who have
suffered because of love (even if they are virgins literally). He has reached
a place of less perfection but more reality. The pain acknowledged here didn’t
exist in the garden.
Doubts cross his shadow – even the crossy eyed maids can see that he is not
really comfortable in this new location but they also see his shadow -> he is
not an innocent anymore.
>“I was once your good gardener,
This is where he really starts to tell the story of his fall. To me the
gardener is someone unassuming. Someone in the background who did a job and
made something beautifu. People don’t really notice the effect they have until
that are finished. I think he started off friends with this girl and their
friendship made her a better person. He’s telling her/himself that he really
did care about her (obsessing, blaming her perhaps).
>sing to bring on Spring,
He brought out the beauty in her. Could allude to myths where the primeval
creative force was song. The magical quality of this suggests that this is no
ordinary garden (duh!),
>I know where your good grass grows,
>I know what your boyfriend knows,
>I was your good gardener”
The boyfriend bit was what made me think of this as an unrequited love song.
He’s telling her that he knows her better than she could imagine, the depth of
their relationship paralled that of lovers. Hasn’t everyone experienced that
flow over of friendship into love? or atleast the confusion of it? In essence
he’s still thinking “how could you reject me?”
>“I saw twilight car waxers, corpulent dog walkers, clean canny couples
>on the sunset strip
Not really sure of this line (falls in a lot better with the Glenn touring
idea). Sort of imagery brings up the glamour and excessiveness of “1st world
living”. When we all live in comfort we tend to shelter ourselves from the
pain of reality. Staying within our comfort zone, so to speak. “I saw …..”
implies that the comfort zone he describes is what the garden is like.
>“From a tower forty miles to the east of Augusta saw a plague on the
>Indian
>a’coming on a windship ”
But something catches his eye as he begins to realise that the pain is coming.
Indian reference could be to something exotic and foreign, from outside the
structure he has grown up in.
>“You were in the garden when the wind swept up and took the foul
>words from your mouth
I think this mean that when the wind/plague of reality was finally hitting him
he realised that she would never leave her boyfriend. That this hoping and
dreaming were coming to nothing. Foul words strike me as her saying something
like “I love you” to her boyfriend and not to him.
>Now you know what your sarcasm really really means
sarcasm is saying something and implying something else (yes, its that
obvious;).
what your sarcasm really means = usually the opposite of what you said.
what your sarcasm really really means = like a double negative, means you
actually meant what you said. (ok so that’s a bit dodge but I like it;p).
Following that somewhat fragile trail of thought, our gardener is realising
that when she said that she loved the boyfriend she actually meant it.
[This isn’t so hard for me to believe this hurts, because I’m quite good at
deluding myself and finding hidden meanings with things that don’t have them.
like possibly this song]
>It’s the tearing with your teeth of the flesh from the bones of your
>brother – ”
brother -> theirs was a relationship based on friendship rather than lust (by
her design). He’s only just realised what hurt he’s felt in the realisation of
it all.
I really like the cannabalism -> act of desperation read though too.
>“Kill the shrub to fertilise the flower,
She’s killed something non-descript and not so obviously beautiful to devote
herself to a more ornamental relationship. She went with the more powerful of
her emotions, lust, attraction rather than the long lasting (flowers don’t last
that long). Because she knows she can’t have it both ways, she chose passion.
>Did I hear you saying that the form doesn’t matter?
At some point she told him she loved him. The implication is as a friend. She
told the same thing to her boyfriend and it meant an entirely different thing
(the form is different). She probably honestly believes that love is love and
that is most important. “because I sleep with him doesn’t mean I love you any
less”. Honey, its not really that easy.
>Well form into matter,
Words have the power to create as well. People play with words while denying
the true power a phrase can have on a person spoken at the right time. Not
only spoken but a look or a smile.
>the matter is forever,
what you say and do has a real effect. She has hurt him forever.
> but only in a good
>garden”
But now that he has left the garden he is getting some perspective and its
healing the wound a little.
Alternatively, the words “I love you” can only be real in one context. If you
don’t really feel it you shouldn’t say it. The good garden = honesty. The
feelings would have been real if the garden had been a place of, well, reality.
I think at this point he realised he had to leave. The cumulative actions, his
realisation cast him out of the garden. Like when you’re fired but they ask you
to hand in a resignation.
This is when the music starts to sound quite “ecstatic” or exultant..
>“Black rock bound in the Brighton bowl where the seas of desolation
>roll,
So now he’s out here, where its not that nice. I don’t know what Brighton
means except that Brighton is usually a sunny sort of place (I think?)
>Where you’re borne and borne and borne in again to the pebble-feather
>shore
>of forgotten friends”
Borne could be heard as “born” – > rebirth. The repetition of “borne” is like
he’s realising that he’s been through this before. Goes along with the theory
that we trap ourselves in cycles, repeating the same mistakes, until we force
ourselves out of them. “forgotten friends” is the bring up of old memories.
Pebble-feather shore possibly means that hitting the shore has the potential of
getting you airborn and getting out of the rut. Or else hitting hard pebbles
and going through it again but with bruises.
>“Think how you can’t see the science without seeing first the self,
You can’t see why you keep doing these dumb things until you know about
yourself. Like most people he knows what the problem is but doesn’t feel he
can fix it.
>But then nobody thinks of growing somebody else,
>And how the sun, hungry sun, holds the withered withered world,
The sun is the thing that nourishes the garden, but when you’re in love you
don’t realise how withered you may come out at the end. It can suck everything
out of you. And the things you cling onto the hardest can be the things that
kill you.
Likely he was sexually attracted to her (the “heat”) and that didn’t lead
anywhere. But you’re blinded in love.
>So why shouldn’t I kiss the beautiful girl?”
>“When I was her good gardener,
So if everything is tainted anyway and his friendship has done so much to help
her, why shouldn’t he just take what he wants try to feel happy being a
bastard? It’s not fair at all really..
>sing of the Summer sham,
Realises he was deluding himself – finally comes out and says it. Sexual
attraction doesn’t constitute love, neither does friendship (not that kind of
love anyway).
>O see them grow tall, see them in their rot, see them go to seed in
>the cemetery plot
Quick summary of their relationship. Started good, went downhill. Finally he
realises it wasn’t the right thing for him either. The seed of their
relationship would have fallen on dead land and for love to succeed it has to
survive more than one season.
>I was your good gardener, sing to bring on Spring
repeated now in a more knowing if cynical tone.
>O ice of Winter would crackle and splinter with my love in everything
again realises that it wouldn’t have lasted.
>Ice of Winter would crackle and splinter with my love in everything
>I was your good gardener… ”
>“The sea is stark and lovely, and it scares me to the point of
>rapture
>I was your good gardener, of some good stature
>The sea is stark and lovely, and it scares me to the point of rapture
>I was your good gardener. Now I – can barely – look at ya.”
Now he’s reconciled himself to his new place. He sees something that he is
afraid of but instead of running back to an illusion of safety and
unrequitedness, now he can see it for what it really is. Dark, flawed, real
and infinitely more beautiful. The garden can hardly compare.
And thus he is ready for true love awwwww
If you want to take the Eden allusion a bit further, you could say that he
finally got the knowledge of good and bad (like what you get off that damn
tree) and it cost him his delusions. Then he went on to something better.
Well thats all folks, sorry if I’ve been repetitive…hell, if you made it this
far I probably owe you a drink;)
And thus I have fulfilled my posting quota,
seeya next year;p
Cathy (aka Kit aka Cat aka….)
From: Glenn Richards
Date: Tue Jan 16, 2001 3:53 pm
Subject: Re: [augiemarch] An entry for the 2001 Post Of The Year award.
No:3442
Let me assure you, discussions like these are probably one of the best
things I could hope for, but they will grow in a better way if people’s
interpretations are regarded immediately as solitary and unique. If I were
to analyse The Good Gardener now for you the result would be no more or less
true than Tim’s. There’s plenty that’s accurate to my original intent but
more that’s not in Tim’s reading, and it’s a good thing. The author is
dead, long live the authors. That said, the line about tearing the flesh of
your brother is literally an Arabic translation of “sarcasm”.
G.