Songs for your Garden

“Songs for your Garden”

Music to soothe both plants and gardener

Purchase the Album

“Songs for your Garden” (CD / MP3) is available direct from CD Baby

Or to order the “Songs for your Garden” CD direct from Eddie Rhoades himself,
please send a check for $10 for each CD plus $2 postage to:

Eddie Rhoades
667 Longwood Court
Marietta, GA 30008-3756

Please include your return address for shipping your CDs to you!

Anyone buying 3 or more copies and living within a 150 mile radius will have their name put in a drawing for a free one hour performance.

Those of you that have already purchased my CD, I would love to hear your comments. Email me at eddie@greenthingie.com.

Production Notes

A computer guru once told me that gardening music was one of the most searched for items on the internet. Being a musician, this was an inspiration for me – to experience a new genre of novelty music. My brother Robert and I set about writing some songs that would be something useful, pleasant and inspiring to gardeners. We came up with an EP (slightly shorter than a full CD) of four unique garden songs and one recital. I think the whole concept is unique. If you have been outside on a summer night you know that nature provides a cacophony of sounds: all sorts of insects and frog noises and during the day it is bees humming and birds chirping. We don’t replicate those sounds but provide songs, some soothing and some animated for both the gardener and the plants. The recitation of A Plant’s Point Of View is yet another unique concept that gives a voice to what plants feel about their situation. I did a web search and found nothing out there that compares to what we have created.

Eddie and Robert Rhoades are very good songwriters but poor marketers. In other words, we make great music but have not discovered how to even break even on the financial end. It takes money to keep going back to the studio to record our creations but if we don’t do this when the songs are fresh in our minds they might become lost to our memory. Once they are gone, it’s forever as I have learned I just can’t trust my memory any more. Making music is an art, promoting it to the public is a business. My hope is that something in this music will touch your heart. These type of songs encourage a more free style of musicianship.

Liner Notes and Song Samples

01 Songs For Your Garden written by Eddie Sung by Robert, melody by Robert
I wanted a dreamy song to set the mood and tone of this CD. I wanted pretty lyrics but could not come up with a tune. Robert came up with a great tune and since my vocal cords had been damaged in an operation* I had to have Robert sing it with his velvet voice.

* First I had a stent put in then three weeks later I had an operation on my carotid artery which was 99% blocked. When the breathing tube was inserted in my throat it bumped my vocal cords which have yet to recover but I am lucky to be alive without having a stroke.

02 Trashy Side
I patterned the tune after the Confederate Railroad song “I Like My Women Just A Little On The Trashy Side” only I wrote it about a garden.

03 Green Man
I told Robert one day I needed a gardening song to go on my first CD. He wrote this song that day. I tweaked a few words and added a verse plus put in the picking part so Robert credits me as a co-writer on this song. It has had air time in Georgia and California.

04 Plants Point Of View – A Recitation
I thought it was time someone documented how the plants may not be as happy with us as we are with them. It has some funny parts. This is a recitation by myself, brother Robert and my wife Linda. Your plants will love it.

05 Weeds In My Garden
Robert wrote this one and in the studio when set to music, it turned out to be a rocker. You’ll dance a bare spot in your garden.

Lyrics

SONG FOR YOUR GARDEN
© 2010 Eddie Rhoades (lyrics), Robert Rhoades (melody)

Morning is breaking, dew’s on the rose
The only sounds you hear, are Nature’s own
Don’t break the spell,
don’t speak a word,
listen to the music of the birds
It’s a song, a song for your garden

Slowly you hum, softly you sing
fresh air and sunshine, the melody rings
lightly you dance,
on the wings of the wind
It seems Mother Nature, has taken you in
With her song, a song for your garden.

Call to the children, come and see,
All of the beauty that nature can be

Hear the song, playing soft and low
You know the music, comes from your soul
from deep down inside,
the core of your being
inspired by all of, the beauty you’re seeing
It’s a song, a song for your garden

Call to the children, come and see,
All of the beauty that nature can be

Slowly you hum, softly you sing
fresh air and sunshine, the melody rings
lightly you dance,
on the wings of the wind
It seems Mother Nature, has taken you in
With her song, a song for your garden.

Trashy Side
© Eddie Rhoades 2010

I like my garden just a little on the trashy side
I got a lot of yard art out in front of my double wide
Cut tires and a whirlygig
Now that’s the kind of garden I can dig
I like my garden just a little on the trashy side

CHORUS
I like my garden just a little on the trashy side
It’ll never be on the cover of Garden Design
It‘s a little bit much I know, to have a front yard full of pink flamingos
But I like my garden just a little on the trashy side

Momma & Poppa rode out to see me last June
They said “ Holy Smoke son, does all this junk belong to you?”
You could have a yard sale in no time, cause all you really need
is a couple of signs
Said I like my garden just a little on the trashy side.

I went out and bought me some wooden pigs
They’re out in the front yard with all the other thingamajigs
Now here’s what I want you to do-
Oink if you love barbecue (OINK)
Yeah I like my garden just a little on the trashy side
I said I like my garden just a little on the trashy side.

Repeat Verse 1 and Chorus

The Green Man
© 2005 Eddie Rhoades

Well I got a little garden in my back yard
A little hoeing little mowing but the work ain’t hard
It’s the cutest little place that you ever did see
I been working in the garden till I turned green

I got butterflies, birds and bees and heck
I got a compost pile that’s up to my neck
I planted strawberries, corn, okra and beans
I been working in the garden till I turned green

Well everybody thinks I’m a font of knowledge
I’m a walking, talking horticultural college
No professor, no dummy, I’m in between
I been working in the garden till I turned green

Mosquitoes and gnats and slugs and deer
I try to keep ‘em all away from here
Just me and Mother Nature it’s plain to see
I been working in the garden till I turned green

They asked me to be on a garden tour
They gonna be surprised, now that’s for sure
The garden is fine, the problem is me –
I been working in the garden till I turned green

1 Eddie Man I wish that sun would hurry up, I’m freezing out here, all I’ve got is just this thin coat of mulch at my base. Oh here it comes, Mmmm, Ahhh, that feels good, now I think I’ll make myself a little sap just to get me started.

Uh oh, look at Hosta ‘manyana’. Hey hosta baby, what happened, you look ragged?

2 Robert Well, I was sound asleep, even though it was a full moon night, when this rabbit looking creature came hopping over and started sniffing my leaves. I couldn’t run or shout or do anything. It just doesn’t seem right that animals can run and jump about and we plants are stuck in one place. I know my Poppa always said “Grow where you are planted” but it still doesn’t seem fair. Anyway, this rabbit creature began nibbling on my leaves and the whole time I’m thinking, “We provide you with all the oxygen you breathe and now we’re supposed to be the food you eat?” “Get a life and grow your own chlorophyll.”

3 Linda You think that’s bad? I’m an impatien and I’m supposed to be in the shade or at least in indirect light. And look where I’m planted, right out here in the full sun every day. Oh, it’s not so bad in the mornings, but later in the day I can feel my sap rising and it feels like it’s going to boil. I can’t transpire fast enough so my little leaves just shut down in protest. I mean just look, some of them are wilted beyond the point of recovery. How did this happen, you ask? It was a creature that doesn’t even have a botanical name so they just call it a human, who planted me here.

4 Eddie Oooo! I’ve heard that when you get out of the forest that humans are everywhere. My Aunt “Touch Me Not” died because one of the humans kept stepping on her. His excuse was she was too close to the path but she was just looking for a little room to expand and enjoy a bit more air and light. Can’t a lady seek a bit more freedom without being trampled to death? I’ve heard rumors that the council of Plants United are thinking about declaring humans as an invasive species. The say the natives are okay but the imports are just rampant.

5 Robert It’s funny how the humans try to do things for us but keep getting it wrong. For example: my human planted me and a bunch of my friends together in this berm. Well, it’s hot now and I’m thirsty and I know there’s water in that hose lying so close but there’s nothing I can do to let the human know I need water. Maybe when I’m dead he’ll be sorry. But that won’t bother him, he’ll just go get some of those bright colored huzzies called annuals with the nursery sign that says “I’m not free but I’m cheap.” They’re not even perennial, they’re just good for one season but he buys them anyway. Don’t those humans realize they need us a lot more than we need them? That’s right, and besides, we were here first, by several million years.

6 Eddie Hey, over here, listen to my story: I’m a burning bush and it’s no wonder I’m burning. I was hungry once and my leaves began to turn yellow. At least the human noticed something was wrong but he didn’t have any compost or organic fertilizer on hand so he gave me a dose of 25-10-10. That’s LAWN FERTILIZER for goodness sake. That stuff was so hot it burned my root hairs off. My stems shot out a foot and now they need pruning. And who’s going to do that?

7 Linda Mr. Human doesn’t know the first thing about pruning so he sheared me. I had stubs everywhere. I’ll never look the same. To top it all off I heard that snooty old ‘Aristocrat’ daylily say I look like the Phyllis Diller of the plant world, whoever that is. I don’t worry about what she says, she’ll be gone tomorrow. Just the other day Mr. Human spilled a cup of coffee on me and while I appreciate the moisture and the nutrients I was up all night. I had this horrible dream where I thought “Oh dear, the deer are coming after me.” When morning came I saw several of my leaves and limbs were missing and realized it wasn’t a dream after all. That has happened to me before but those deer never seem to bother red cedar, wonder why?

8 Robert You think that’s bad? Let me tell you what happened to me: I’m a native plant to these parts and here I was minding my own business when a bird came over to eat some of the beetles on me. While I appreciate the fact birdie has an appetite for such things, while he was here he did a little business of his own and left me a gift in the form of a seed from a Japanese honeysuckle. Now just look at me. That thing has vined all over me and is hogging the sunlight and I can hardly breathe. There ought to be some sort of law preventing the immigration of these illegal plant aliens. Just take a look around, we’ve got plants here from Mexico, France Japan, China, Europe, it’s becoming a botanical nightmare. Just look at some of their offspring: cornus kousa crossed with cornus florida and formed a hybrid called ‘Stellar Pink.’ What’s next?

9 Eddie It’s starting to cloud up. Looks like it may rain and cool things off around here. If it does I am going to show my appreciation by opening a few more blossoms. Bring on those bees and butterflies baby, I’m ready to pollinate.

There’s things in my garden,
things I didn’t plan on.
They just seem to pop up,
those weeds in my garden.

And try as I may
I can’t seem to fight them.
They try to take over,
those weeds in my garden.

CHORUS
I didn’t buy seeds,
I didn’t fertilize them.
They just grow on their own,
those weeds in my garden.

It’s the same way in life
little things will take over.
Little sins you let in,
they seem to want to own ya’.

(Var. chorus)
You don’t need to buy seeds,
You don’t need to fertilize them.
They just grow on their own,
those weeds in my garden.

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