Gardening at Night

The R.E.M. Breakdown

This week on the podcast join jD and Rico as they examine the second track from Chronic Town, Gardening at Night.

Transcript:

[0:15] It's J.D. here, and I'm joined as always by Rico Borrego to discuss the work of influential American band R.E.M.

Every week we'll explore a different song in the band's catalog, working through the discography in chronological order to better understand just why this four-piece band is considered soseminal, innovative, and downright awesome. So there's that.

Talk to me, Rico. How the hell are things going? going oh going good um this last week here i tried to prep for this episode try to go outside and do a little gardening except it's uh winterand uh everything is dead so what's winter like in sacramento you know it's it's not bad it's pretty like um it's not cold like it doesn't ever really get cold even at night it's still pretty likeyou know we don't really get frost so we don't get snow um but and we can make it in a little bit more rain than normal which me originally being from washington state i'm used to thatright um but no it's still and i think like next week we're creeping up into the high 60s low 70s oh nice so yeah even though it's only you know it's still winter here it's it's already going tostart warming up um so no but But no gardening, unfortunately.

[1:39] Not even cutting the grass. We have an orange tree. Pick some oranges, but that's about it. You have an orange tree?

Yeah, we do. Oh, man.

When I lived in LA, we had a banana tree. Oh, nice.

Until the monkeys came.

[1:59] Oh, that used to be one of my stand-up jokes. Yeah. You can tell why I don't do stand-up anymore.

A lot of, I see a lot of lemon trees, too, though, here. Oh, yeah?

[2:15] Lemons, limes. Oh, man, citrus on trees. That's fucking great.

Which somehow connects to this episode, I think.

Yeah, you've sort of given it away. And, I mean, the title of the episode is going to give it away as well.

But we're talking about gardening at night today so pretty exciting this is one of my favorite songs on chronic town probably my probably my favorite song yeah maybe radio they saywhy oh no radio free europe's not on it yeah duh um what's what's your favorite i think our last episode wolves lower wolves lower okay but this this is like this would be clear numbertwo like Like, it is close.

Yeah. To me, this is the other really standout track from the CP.

I think I have those inverted. For me, this is one, and Love's Lower would be two.

But maybe it's one A and one B. You know what I mean?

I can see that. And I only think this way because, for me, this song, we'll get into it a little later, I'm sure, is kind of like a segue into another song off Murmur.

It has a very similar style to another song that i think they do a little better on murmur oh wow um they're not identical but i just feel like this song is like a precursor to that songinteresting i can't wait till we get there.

[3:35] But uh no i gardening at night is a classic for their early life absolutely when you think this is on their first release and it sounds so mature yeah i mean the the songwriting especiallyon this song, um, as we'll get to like, is actually a little bit more complex than some of the stuff on murmur. Even talk to me.

[3:58] I think this song you get, like you have an intro, you have verses, you have a chorus, simple chorus, then you have a post-course which online, some people consider it a bridge, butit happened more than once.

So I consider it a post-course. It happened after.

Yeah. A bridge just once. and then there's even like a bridge an actual bridge after like the last chorus where it sounds different than the intro and it sounds different than the post chorus,um but it's super short and it segues back into that intro and so it kind of bookmarks you know the intro happens at the beginning and at the end um and you know i think on a lot of songson murmur they're a little bit more simple they're kind of more just like verse chorus verse chorus They'll hold out that chorus. They'll make you wait for it.

Yeah, the song, it has a lot of energy. It has the same amount of energy as Wolf's Lower, but this song has a much wider bounce to it.

It doesn't sound as dark, not as impressive. Makes you want to dance.

Yeah, yeah. Kind of in a similar way that Radio Free Europe does.

Yeah. I can picture jumping up and down to this song.

Yeah. Well, I was 11 when this came out, so maybe not. No, I wasn't even 11. I was 8.

[5:18] Yeah. So I wouldn't have been too much jumping up and down. I wasn't alive, so. I did zero jumping.

So what do you know? What do you know?

Well, I think the most important thing to note, Michael has gone to record saying that he feels that this is the first real song the band wrote.

I've heard that as well. Yes. He says after multiple failed attempts, they finally were able to get the song that he considered to be their first real piece of music.

It's not wild uh what else is crazy too is that um so the song was written in june of 1980, supposedly on a mattress in the front yard of a church in athens i read that what the hell churchyeah i guess which when we dive into the lyrics i think that the church might have some inspiration to the lyrics themselves oh wow and i can just envision michael stipe like writing lyricson a mattress like yeah like so weird.

Track 1:

[6:25] I mean.

Track 2:

[6:26] It makes like, you know, the band, they weren't, you know, they were barely a band at that point. Like people aren't going to like know them and recognize them.

So, um, but it's kind of interesting imagery to think about, you know, as someone who's never been to Athens, like I, you know, I don't really have a picture in my mind, but it's, it's funnyto read things like that.

Like just on a random mattress in the front yard in front of a church, you know, I wonder if it just struck him.

Like it just, the lyrics came to him and he had to get them out. You know what I mean?

Yeah. I don't. Well, cause when you go like to the song itself.

[7:01] Um, I've, I've read a ton of theories about what the song's about.

Some people think it's about his dad.

Some people think it's about drugs. Um, some people think it's actually about gardening in the night.

Like, you know, um, and Michael's gone on record saying that it's all of those things. Yeah. All of them. Yeah.

I don't get the drug one. I don't really necessarily get that.

I mean, Maybe the line's about the payphone or something, but I do wonder if there is a little bit of truth to it being about his dad, though, because when the band were inducted into theRock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, this was one of the songs they played, and he dedicated it to his dad before they played it.

Yes, that's right. They were inducted in 2007, right?

Yeah. Yeah, I think it was Eddie Vedder who inducted them, if I recall.

He definitely was there and did Man on the Moon with them. Oh, man.

[7:59] Yeah, I would pay so much money to have been there, even just to fly on the wall.

But yeah, I do think maybe it's about his dad.

[8:11] But at this point, too, Michael was very like, he didn't want to give the songs away, like what they were about.

Out well there is still some mumble to this song as well right for sure yeah especially the version on uh chronic town right because i'm gonna get to it a little bit later there's like fourdifferent versions of the song i've read that as well and i and i tracked them all down i've tracked them all down i've listened to them all damn and i actually don't think my favorite versionis the the one on Chronic Town.

[8:47] Um there's another one i prefer really yeah you'll have to get me my hands on that and we can play them both in this episode maybe yeah well i mean i could probably get you allfour of them really that might be a little too i don't know you might want to play maybe just clips, of some of the other ones because i'll just say now there's so there's four main versionsthere's this one on chronic town right yep then the one on eponymous they're kind of like greatest hits of the irs years that one has a completely different vocal take where um on thisversion on chronic town he sings in like almost like a head voice like it's it's not quite falsetto but it's kind of definitely it's it's definitely a higher register it's unique even for michael at thattime it's kind of different yeah and he would return to that style more and you know later albums but it's definitely different than anything else on even this ep but the one on eponymoushe's singing it like they would sing it live where he's singing it like very loud and like how he sings radio for europe or wolves lower right um you can make out the lyrics better oh andand the mix is different too even though online there's no claim that the only claim is that the vocal take is different but the mix is different too.

[10:08] There's less percussion actually there's more percussion in the eponymous version there's like an extra like tambourine in the verses okay and the guitars in the that post course aremixed totally differently they're a little like scaled back.

[10:26] And I kind of prefer it that way. I do think the production on Chronic Town is definitely a little bit more outdated than the production of the version on eponymous.

Are they both produced by Mitch Easter?

That one, like a demo? That one, I don't know.

I mean, I know he did the one on Chronic Town, but I don't know who did the different mixes on eponymous.

Because there's actually the eponymous has a ton of different versions of songs, like the finest work song.

There's horns in the eponymous version. but i don't know i don't know if like for that one i don't know if scott lit was the one that added them in afterwards or or what right um now there'salso a version of gardening a night where it's acoustic and that was heard that that one was a bonus song on the european reissue of dead letter office holy shit which i don't own um i justhave like the normal dead letter office but But it's an acoustic version, and it sounds like it's just Michael and Peter Buck on an acoustic guitar, and that's it. There's one more.

They have a compilation called An I Feel Fine.

[11:35] That's right. Yeah. And there's a version of there, and this one is labeled as a demo, where it's the electric version, but it's slowed down.

And I just don't mean like you know we talked about Raider for Europe having a slower tempo and Loves Lower as well this one is like not by just a couple you know beats it's like totallyslower it's like as slow as the acoustic version it's like.

[12:03] Like a completely different sounding song but it's the exact same like chords and instrumentation you know it's electric guitar bass is drum but it's slow like it the the tempo is justlike, not even close to the version we know today so uh my favorite though is the eponymous one just because of the vocals okay but the acoustic one is very interesting too because it isjust vocals and acoustic guitar and the acoustic is mixed very nicely it's got like a little reverb, it doesn't it sounds like a studio version it doesn't sound like a live version, okay so well ifyou can get me those tracks let's listen to all four yeah why not why not i i do think this is one of the more important songs when it comes to their earlier work especially you know post,I'm sorry, pre-Murmur.

Right. The song was played, 245 times live.

Track 1:

[13:02] It was their 25th most played live song of their career.

Track 2:

[13:07] Well, it's a hit, right?

It's a hit before they were able to make hits. I mean, Chronic 10 only moved 20,000 units.

I don't mean only, because 20,000 units for an EP for a debut band is pretty significant.

But it's interesting to me that.

[13:29] Like, I consider this song like a single and a hit, you know?

Yeah, and they didn't really have singles for this EP.

No. I mean, it was just, you know, Raider for Europe, the first single, and then this. And yeah, they had a music video for Wolves Lower.

But some of these songs just became fan favorites that even after Murmur, people were still wanting to hear um gardening at night and wanting to hear wolves lower and yeah you knowboxcars and and all those other songs so yeah it feels like almost like a cult classic where like yeah i didn't sell huge like you said but you know it's considered one of their best and iunderstandably i think gardening and a night. It's so fun.

Like agreed agreed well before we listen to the songs why don't you tell the story about why it's called garden at night yeah you know so um and i think it's for the i feel fine umcompilation bill said that they were driving um i believe from a show from a gig and he has some passengers in his car and one of them told him to pull over because he had to do somenight night gardening, which was slang for taking a piss on the side of the road.

[14:48] You know, they're no, they're nowhere near, you know, where they can use a restroom.

And he's just like, yeah, I got to do some, you know, night gardening.

That's spectacular. And yeah, that's supposedly, you know, um, he said that that's, that's all you really needed to start a song was just like a phrase like that.

Yeah. Um, and you know, Peter went on to say the song, he said, basically a metaphor for the uselessness of everything but if you didn't get that i'm not surprised it's kind of a confusedsong which is kind of the perfect way to sum it up because, besides that knowing what you know why the song has that title none of the other lyrics really make sense no no like again youcan kind of see where it might be about his father you can kind I don't see there's some church imagery, but yeah, there's no like running, you know, dialogue narrative to the song.

[15:43] Totally agree, man. Totally agree. Well, what do you say we get into the breakdown?

But before we do that, we give this song a spin.

Sounds perfect. All right, cool.

[19:19] All right. Well, that was gardening a night.

Track 1:

[19:22] JD.

Track 2:

[19:23] What do you, what do you like when you first heard the song?

What did you think? I'm very curious.

Well, the core, like my first thoughts are the chorus is the hook, you know, like there's a, there's a really great hook with the chorus.

Uh, that melody is infectious and sticks with you.

But beyond that, I love the, I love.

[19:45] The first first 32 bars of this song you know like uh i love that intro guitar you know what is it four times he plays through very clean sounding guitar very clean sounding guitar ohwell there's even the little the very first intro where it's like the picking out where he does like the you know that part yeah yeah and then i love the the punctuation of the drums comes uhright before michael say breaks into the first verse like i love that i love that build up you know like it's like and then you get into that first verse and you're trying to figure out just whatthe fuck it is he's saying because he's like dragging phrases into another phrase like Like this song, I do a lot of karaoke and I can imagine seeing this at a karaoke bar and just being blownaway if somebody could sing it, you know what I mean?

Cause it's such a weird cadence.

It's such a weird, uh, phrasing. It's just bonkers.

Yeah. And like we were saying, especially the way his voice, like it's in a higher register, but it's not full falsetto.

[20:58] No, no, it's not like, um, oh God, I can't think of the song.

Monster oh tongue tongue tongue yeah yeah well that whole song he's in that falsetto register basically that's right yeah yeah um yeah no i i totally agree i've um i you know i do everynow and again play rem on guitar yeah um but i i really don't do a lot of their early stuff because it is hard to get that energy on just like an acoustic guitar like they have some songs whereyou can cruise the guitar and just vocals is great.

But this early stuff, it's really hard to nail the energy that comes out of these songs.

Well, like you say, it's not just straightforward chords, right?

Like it's this jangle, it's this jangly sound that Peter Buck is so...

[21:55] Known for you know and and and the band ultimately is known for you know and i'm glad you you brought up the word jingle because i wanted to mention in this song becauseyou know will's lower you know we talked about in the last episode it has some of that jingle i had the arpeggios but that one felt like more of a fierce rock song this definitely has thatjingle that you know birds birds sounding you know guitars great comp the birds yeah this song especially like and what i like it too about like this song is you know the very beginningyou have that really short clean guitar picking riff yeah um you know bill's drum you know to kind of start getting energy in the song some her bass harmonics from mike and then likeyou said you get to that that part where it's the really fast chord changes yeah and that to me reminds me a little bit i won't get into it too much this episode but kind of reminds me of likethe intro of sitting still off of murmur oh and i kind of feel like this song was like the prototype for that song just in like just in the feeling of the chords and like especially to this song likeboth songs like Like, the chords and the bass line have this kind of descending thing going on. Yeah.

[23:19] Kind of that thing going on, which kind of gives it like a post-punk feel.

But it's not angry. It's very... It's like birds.

Like, the birds played faster-tempoed songs, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. I could see that. If they had been around in the post, you know, post-punk, post...

Well, it's not post-New Wave. Like this is still new wave going on at this, at this time.

Um, but, uh, very, yeah, very interesting.

And I really like, you know.

[23:54] Peter buck his dynamics because in the verse like you said he's doing like just the chords right yeah but you have mike playing his bass is almost playing like the melody and thenwhen you get to that post-chorus that's when peter starts doing the arpeggios and that's where there's kind of some more nuances in the song and there's some guitars in in this version ofthe song on the chronicton version where like there's definitely multiple guitars in that in that post-chorus you hear like on the the right the right channel like peter's arpeggios but then youkind of hear these like phasey guitars too i don't know if you really noticed that in the didn't in the post chorus um there's definitely some additional guitars going on that helps fill out thesound and there's way less of that in the eponymous version and that's the version i'm more used to, right you know because that eponymous was like my first introduction to their, irsyears their first couple albums you know god so i'm when i really was digging into the chronic time versions of these songs i was like oh wow these guitars sound a lot different right um ii i don't even know how to explain the tones to them but it gives great textures in the song and.

[25:09] The details like like you said like this the song is simple if you just give it a quick listen but if you really listen in for the you know finer details they're there who who's doing thebackup vocals on this is it is it michael stipe doubled or i think so i think so i thought and i'm i'm glad i'm not the only one who thought that because i didn't want to come on here becausei i did some research and i couldn't really figure it out live it'd be mike but right yeah it's sound because Because they're very brief on the song. It's not like Radio Free Europe.

It's really only, I think, during the second or third time he sings Gardening at Night. It's the third time through. It's the third time through.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's this sort of delayed, this delay sort of, like maybe milliseconds delay.

[25:54] I think it is his own vocals. Yeah. I don't think it's Mike.

I thought maybe it was Bill at first because he would do some backing vocals on these early albums.

But no, yeah, I think it's Michael. michael which which is interesting because you know you know murmur be known for mike you know in those harmonies that's right uh but they're notquite harmonies in this song you know it's really kind of michael driven which i appreciate yeah um i do want to point out when it comes to the guitar peter said he was actually inspiredby neil young's song cinnamon girl oh for its It's double drop D tuning, but on Gardening a Night, he doesn't drop both his E's to D, only the high E, which gives us this kind of droningsound, in a good way, not in a bad way, where when he's playing his riffs and his chords, it just makes the song sound more full.

Interesting. thing but it's weird because like yeah Neil Young's Cinnamon Girl, both both his E strings are tuned down to drop D but for this song it's just his high E, Wow. And I don'tknow. Later down the road, they would actually play at Neil Young's Bridge School Benefits. And there's a great version of Country Feedback with Neil Young.

But you wouldn't expect Neil Young to be an influence on these early songs.

[27:24] Well, yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah. I'm just thinking of some of those earlier records. Some of those earlier Neil records, like before Crazy Horse, for sure.

Yeah, I don't know. It is very interesting. When I read that, I was, you know, because like I said, I don't play the song on guitar.

So I actually looked up people doing guitar tutorials.

And yeah, you can play without dropping down your high E string to D, but that's how he plays a live.

Um and he plays as another song too i think uh 99 on murmur where it's the same tuning so when they would play either song live they would do both of them together okay so that wayhe didn't have to switch out the guitars you know right right right and if you want another fun fact I do.

This is going to be not as beneficial to our listeners because this is an audio-only podcast.

But on the... I think I was holding up a vinyl right now. Yeah, and you're probably not going to see it. I probably should.

It says...

Track 1:

[28:37] I'll read it here.

Track 2:

[28:39] It says, all songs published by Night Garden Music.

That's right. That's right. right they started their production label um um, And they called it, yeah, Night Gardening. Yeah. Very funny.

It remained on the inside label of their vinyl records until, I think, Green, where they actually started posting it on the CD, like the Spines, I think. That's what they were. Okay.

I used to have all their CDs, but when I moved, I decided I wasn't going to collect CDs anymore, just vinyl.

Yeah. And you've got a great vinyl collection behind you. Yeah.

Thankfully, I have. And people can't see it, but it's a great looking collection.

I thankfully have an original copy of Crowning Town. Because I read that and I was like, is that true? And I pulled mine out and I was like, oh, yeah.

You can read it for yourself right there. Wild.

[29:35] That was just also like another cool little fact about the song.

And then, you know, looking at the lyrics, you know, we mentioned before at the beginning of this episode that, you know, they started writing the song on a mattress outside of a church.

Which is funny because their first gig was at a church not that same church but at a different church okay i think saint mary is in athens um but going through the lyrics of the song, umthere's some lines that you know here in the the post chorus he sings call the prayer line for a change yeah and i i you know not growing up at this time i didn't know this but doing somesome research, there used to be prayer lines that you could call and they would charge you.

I did not like nine, seven, six numbers. Yeah. Nine, six, seven numbers. I forget what it was.

There was a, there was a time in the eighties and nineties where there was lots of like anything that was a paid number was nine, six, seven or, or nine, seven, six.

I forget what it was. If you're listening to this and you're screaming at us right now, send us an email and tell us what, tell us what it really was.

[30:45] So, you know, the prayer line kind of made me think of like the church themes.

And then in the second verse, he sings, we echoed up, we echoed up the garage sound, but they were busy in the rows.

And I'm thinking of that as like them, you know, I think of that as like an autobiographical line where, you know, they're they're learning these songs and playing these songs like in thegarage and stuff.

And when I think of like the rows, I'm thinking of like the pews at like a church.

[31:15] Church interesting oh wow okay since their first gig was at a church yeah yeah yeah yeah oh that's that's interesting so again i don't know how much that actually has to do youknow with the song but, you know that's just trying to make sense of these lyrics that's as much as i could get well it's interesting because we get this sort of roadmap from michael stipesaying saying it's about drugs it's about my dad and it's about gardening at night it's about all those things and so then you're left pouring through the lyrics to try and determine like forme, it's not till the third verse um that or the second verse no the third verse where i think that's about his dad when it's your sister said that you're too young yes uh they should know thatthey've been there twice the call was 2 and 51 like i wonder if he got a call at 251 from his father's sister saying that his father had passed or something like that.

[32:21] Yeah it's it's interesting because i i think there's a a song on murmur about his sister too i don't know it might be sitting still now that i think about it um um, And it's veryinteresting, because reading people's responses online to the song, some people thought that line where he says the call was $2.51, people thought that meant that he was charged $2.51.

Oh, okay. Because they thought it still had to do with the previous verse where he was saying about the prayer line.

Oh, the prayer line. Okay, okay. But yours actually kind of makes more sense to me now, because, yeah, he kind of changed the direction of the song with bringing in his sister.

Yeah, yeah. It's more familial.

Yeah. So it's a, you know, lyrically, it's a very, it's a weird song. Yeah.

But man, it was a fan favorite. They played it a ton live. There was a period where they wouldn't play some of these earlier songs.

But I remember when I did this for Song of the Week on the REM Reddit, some people.

Track 1:

[33:26] Someone said that they went to a show in the 90s and they played the song live and it was the first time in like 10 years that they had played that song oh my god so they took a bigbreak from it yeah and then they would though like um i'm probably gonna bring this up every episode but that great live of olympia um cd they were doing some of these chronic townsongs and gardening at night is one of them and again that's one of my favorite live versions of the song because well i feel like there's i read that there's six or seven live versionsavailable available like yeah to to be heard there's like i think a concert when they reissued murmur that has a song the live at olympia that i mentioned um there's a lot you can go to, anystreaming service and just type in gardening at night and you're going to find those versions as well as those other versions of the studio versions that we talked about acoustic slow down,alternative vocal take i think they're all worth the listen like if you like this song listening to all of those versions i think is is worth your time yeah yeah i think so too.

[34:31] Well anything else to say about gardening at night rico no i mean i think i think that about does it i mean there's a lot of history and there's a lot of you know meanings you can pullfrom the song but i think the most important thing is that like this is one of their early classics and you know a fan favorite and you know one of your favorites and you know it's up therefor me too and they're their early stuff so i definitely think this up this song there's more to pull from than maybe the next couple but it's gonna be interesting to see what we take fromthese next couple because i think you start getting into a little bit more uncharted territories you know right right well that's all we've got for this week on behalf of rico this is jd sayingblink your eyes and we'll be back thanks for listening to the ram breakdown for more information visit our site at rembreakdown.com or send us an email.