I recently stumbled on a song from 1988 by the Talking Heads, called (Nothing But) Flowers. It’s hard to believe I would not have heard this song before. It caps off the “Best Of” album, after all. But, to be fair, a sampling of the album reveals that 8 of the 18 songs are unfamiliar to me. So, maybe it never hit my ears.
Anyway, listening as if for the first time, I’m captivated by the song. Although it’s not perfect, it hits themes that few songs do. What I’ll do is quote all the lyrics and intersperse comments. I’ll put my interpretive slant on the piece, which may or may not accurately reflect the intent of its creators. So it goes with these things. Sometimes the original intent isn’t even all that important or sacred. In this case, I don’t sense I’m far off the mark, but just want to be clear that I do not claim to have perfect knowledge of the creative intent, nor am I trying to achieve such.
Attributions
The lyrics that follow come from Musixmatch; Songwriters: David Byrne / Tina Weymouth / Jerry Harrison / Yves N’jock / Chris Franz; (Nothing but) Flowers lyrics © Index Music Inc., Index Music, Inc.
Ready?
Here we stand
Like an Adam and an Eve
Waterfalls
The Garden of Eden
We start at “the beginning” of humanity—at least according to the story of the Abrahamic traditions. Skipping a literal interpretation of two so-named individuals (note the “Like”), these words evoke a simple, idyllic time. A paradise. Who doesn’t love that notion? We are led to imagine the state before “The Fall.” Daniel Quinn makes a compelling case that the “fall” was out of the grace of our original ecological context and into agriculture, which I summarize in A Religion of Life.
Two fools in love
So beautiful and strong
The birds in the trees
Are smiling upon them
It’s a community of life. Life is both beautiful and strong. Members of modernity imagine those who came before as fools: knowing nothing of importance. But they knew love! This stanza gets at the relationships, cooperation, and mutual respect that serves as an engine for the community of life. All good, here. Then modernity rears its head:
From the age of the dinosaurs
Cars have run on gasoline
Where, where have they gone?
Now, it’s nothing but flowers
These few short lines span millions of years, during which modernity is a fleeting blip that dissolves into deep time. This one section captures the essence of both the song and our long journey. Had it started with “Since,” one might object to the insinuation that we’ve been using cars for 65 million years. But since it’s “From,” it’s addressing the question: where did fossil fuels come from? From the distant past.
Anyway, I have often mused about the stories trees will tell each other in hundreds of years: “Remember that strange little period that only lasted a century or so when metal boxes hurled past our feet on ribbons of smooth fake rock—long since broken up and reclaimed by the forest?” “Yeah, that was weird.” In several short millennia, not much will be left of modernity. Nothing but “flowers.”
There was a factory
Now, there are mountains and rivers
You got it, you got it
The song presents a number of examples of modernity’s fading bastions, giving way to elements of nature that have stood the test of time, and are almost certain to dominate landscapes after modernity’s fragile scraps have disintegrated.
We caught a rattlesnake
Now, we got something for dinner
We got it, we got it
A typical “westerner” recoils at the thought of eating a snake: never something one finds on the menu. But nature is opportunistic. If something falls in your lap, why not? This bit of the song contributes to its shock value: a whole different world awaits.
There was a shopping mall
Now, it’s all covered with flowers
You’ve got it, you’ve got it
Sounds lovely.
If this is paradise
I wish I had a lawnmower
You’ve got it, you’ve got it
Okay, this is where David Byrne, in my telling, switches narration to that of a typical modernist response, making fun of the knee-jerk reactions characteristic of our ugly present-selves. The modern impulse is to reject the natural (as beautiful as it might be), impose order and control, and transform the landscape into an impoverished shadow of its former, messy glory—all so it fits more easily in our cramped craniums. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, modern humans suck at beholding.
Years ago
I was an angry young man
I’d pretend
That I was a billboard
Standing tall
By the side of the road
I fell in love
With a beautiful highway
Here, we have another jab at ridiculous modern sensibilities. We train people in our society to think algorithmically, like robots. Many aspire to a sort of technological perfection (where “perfection” means stripped down to a form comprehensible to meat-brains). We fall in love with our technologies. We call our rectilinear artificial world beautiful. We are in love with modernity, and it’s a little weird. It has to stop.
This used to be real estate
Now, it’s only fields and trees
Where, where is the town?
Now, it’s nothing but flowers
More loveliness. Notice the ironic understatement in use of words like “only” and “nothing but” for what is truly marvelous. In fact, “nothing but” appears parenthetically in the song’s title. It’s also a phrase used by philosophical idealists, who (on tremendous authority?) can’t abide the notion that our sensations might have a lowly material basis, and be “nothing but” atoms, their arrangements, and interactions. What authority speaks otherwise? “Only” the humble universe. “Nothing but” is meant to demean a materialist stance, but in so doing breezily skips over an ocean of unfathomable complexity that our brains simply aren’t materially constructed to handle. It’s a revealing admission of—and squirming over—our forgivable, inevitable ignorance. But I digress.
The highways and cars
Were sacrificed for agriculture
I thought that we’d start over
But I guess I was wrong, hey
This is where the song takes a narrower view than how I might have framed it. But, hey, close enough. The view I subscribe to is that the seeds of modernity lie in the initiation of grain agriculture. This is where our quest for control took root, leading to our perceived separation from nature and our sense of superiority. Many maladies accompany the agricultural route (e.g., see the River post).
But the second half of this passage expresses surprise that when modernity failed, we didn’t just ramp it back up—instead taking a simpler turn. I can’t rule out that the simpler turn will have agricultural elements—in fact it very probably will. But any way of living that persists into the long term likely can’t share much in common with the totalitarian practices we’ve applied to agriculture these last 10,000 years.
Once there were parking lots
Now, it’s a peaceful oasis
You got it, you got it
Peaceful oasis sounds rather nice. The parking might be terrible, but it seems like a fine trade—especially if no one has a car.
This was a Pizza Hut
Now, it’s all covered with daisies
You got it, you got it
Not selling modernity too well, huh?
I miss the honky tonks
Dairy Queens and Seven-Elevens
You got it, you got it
Now we have the reappearance of our modernist commentator, lamenting all those perks. This is a natural reaction, but what’s the point of liking something that is based on a lie and carries destruction? If something can’t exist in long-term ecological sustainability, actively promoting a sixth mass extinction, then it’s best to come to terms. Go ahead and shed the tears, but we don’t have the option of preserving our Likes without the raft of associated Dislikes.
And as things fell apart
Nobody paid much attention
You got it, you got it
This one is fascinating. A natural reaction of billions of modernists alive today is horror and panic at a terminal diagnosis for modernity. It’s all they/we know. But perhaps this is the future version of an “Okay, Boomer” sort of symptom (perhaps Okay, Z’er, or Okay, Alpha). If the migration away from modernity is gradual enough, it will all seem rather normal and acceptable to the new generations walking the earth. The hissy-fits will have died away, literally. Maybe we do take it in stride. Lots to ponder, here.
I dream of cherry pies
Candy bars and chocolate chip cookies
You got it, you got it
Our meddlesome modernity advocate is back. Who doesn’t enjoy these things?! It’s fun to list our Likes, isn’t it. I recommend crayon as a medium.
We used to microwave
Now, we just eat nuts and berries
You got it, you got it
Sounds right to me. You got it. In fact, the repetition of “You got it” (and variants) might be interpreted as: yes—we all still do “have it.” Deep down, we’re still the creatures we evolved to be, and still have latent instincts honed by millions of years—ready to practice and nurture.
This was a discount store
Now, it’s turned into a cornfield
You got it, you got it
Okay, back to my objection that “cornfield” is not necessarily our future path. But the general sense is still intact: artificial constructions give way to more natural forms (Life).
Don’t leave me stranded here
I can’t get used to this lifestyle
A final, panicked protest from our modernist, who will never accept that they had it all wrong, and were shaped for a distorted, transitory phase of life on Earth. So it might go for billions of people. It’s hard to change, and to accept that the life to which we have become accustomed has shortchanged us and the entire community of life in the long run.
The Actual Song
There’s also music. It’s surprisingly upbeat and catchy. David Byrne’s distinctive voice is best showcased when he asks “Where,” and also on “Seven-Elevens.” The video is also worth a look. Various Do-the-Mathy stats are flashed up (may need to hit pause to absorb some) highlighting various absurdities and tragedies. It’s clear we’re coming from a similar place: modernity is doing something very wrong, here.
Anyway, this bit of musical appreciation was not my usual sort of post, so I hope it goes down well. It does highlight for me the power of music and song at moving worthy thoughts in a memorable way. We have a knack for remembering musical verses. It makes me wonder if I should invest some time in that direction, but I predict I would suck at it—which you may have noticed is a recurrent theme lately in my description of human aptitudes (myself included).
