garden of eden… growing beauty in the blight
Sometimes I have mixed feelings about living here. And then I sing this Mike West song from the “Redneck Riveria” album, written back when he lived with his former partner in love and music, Myshkyn, in a shotgun house in the 9th ward of New Orleans until years later, Katrina washed it away… he was touring with his wife Katie at the time with their band Truckstop Honeymoon, and their roommate spent the storm back home in the attic with their dogs. There wasn’t much to come home to other than a house full of mold and some drowned chickens in the yard… they packed up whatever they had left and now live in Lawrence, KS with their growing family (when they’re not still on the road playing shows).
If S. & I ever get properly hitched my few requirements are a bike parade beforehand, and that Truckstop Honeymoon play the reception (which will be a potluck backyard pig-roast with mismatched mason jars of homebrew or sun tea, pies galore, and at least three kinds of potato salad. I’m not a very fancy kind of girl, but have given this some degree of thought). Al Scorch will have to cover this song for us though, as they don’t do the Myshkyn-era songs anymore. I understand where that comes from, but those were some damn fine tunes…
Garden of Eden
Jerry caught a catfish big as a dog
wish i could catch a fish like that
then he caught a flounder
a fifteen pounder
big as a door mat
it tasted sweet with a little crab meat
well, that’s what jerry said
but he showed me the spot
where that fish was caught
Jerry i’m surprised you’re not dead
oh, looks are deceiving
is this a ghetto or the garden of eden
oh, if seein’s believing
show me a ghetto
i’ll show you a garden of eden.
Patty grows bananas
and keeps an iguana
in the bird cage by the kitchen
she’s always in the garden
working hard and
bending her back and a’bitchin
“no matter what i sow
i can’t get nothing to grow
in the shade of the pecan tree
i’ve got a beautiful son
but my husband’s a bum
but that’s alright with me
’cause oh, oh, looks are deceiving…
(refrain)
you get home from work
you say your boss is a jerk
he doesn’t pay you what your worth
i have to agree
’cause for what you do for me
Honey, i’d pay you the earth
so we sit outside and watch the last of the light
fading from the skies
A couple of blocks away
you hear shots and say
“these are the best days of our lives.”
oh, oh, looks are deceiving
is this the ghetto or the garden of Eden.
Oh, oh, if seeing is believing,
Show me a ghetto,
I’ll show you,
A garden of Eden. “-Mike West
So sometimes there are shopping carts and cardboard boxes dumped in your garden… but those shopping cart guys are the only recycling we’ve got going in our neighborhood, and that cardboard will get used to build new raised beds. One man’s trash is another woman’s treasure… and the roses bloom gloriously either way. The strawberries are sun-warmed and sweet. The sunflowers that my neighbor planted with his son last year reseeded themselves generously all over the garden, as did last year’s arugula and some of the lettuce… and everything else is a jungle of raspberry and lemon balm- and how can anyone be melancholic while wading through a thicket of Melissa officinalis? Not even I.