“You're a Garden” by Meadow Argus – A Song Feature

 

      Meadow Argus form a spirited ecosystem of colorful life from a diversity of instrumentation. Their songs are melodically appealing and vocally compelling, but it’s the instrumentation that catches and holds the ear. “You're a Garden” is perhaps the leading example within the discography of Meadow Argus.

 

     The promotional content for “You're a Garden” provides insights as to how the kaleidoscope of timbe is created. The refreshingly non-standard percussion is identified as distorted xylophone. But is that a digeridoo at times, such as at 2:45? Probably not, although Meadow Argus is from Australia, home of the digeridoo. Additionally, the bridge that begins at 1:51 is powerful. The explanation is that the song includes “crisply fingerpicked acoustic guitar to provide a bed for phasey 12-string swirls.”

 

      Meadow Argus hails from the outskirts of Eastern Australia’s hinterland town of Maleny. “You're a Garden” was recorded in the rainforest studio of Jevan Cole, the driving force behind Meadow Argus. Cole is identified as the arranger and producer of the song, with Tim Hall contributing the Power Pop vocals and the percussion. The song was produced and mastered by Jevan, but under the watchful direction of Australia's wanderkind producer, Lachlan Gould ("Magoo").

 

      Lyrically, the song is quirky. We need to take the word of Jevan Cole when he explains, "’You're a Garden’ contemplates the meaning of art, and its connection to the divine, both within and all around us.”

 

     The bands description of itself is interesting:

  “Australian psych-folk freaks, Meadow Argus travel forgotten mountain tracks and narrow country lanes collecting imagined folklore and abandoned ephemera. Found sounds intertwine with bubbling synths, intricate acoustic guitars, and spaced-out electrics. Woven into a tattered and worn tapestry of pastoral acoustic abstracts, whimsical electronica, and sparklingly dark jangle fuzz pop songs. “

 
     “You're a Garden” by Meadow Argus

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meadowargusmusic

Website: https://www.meadowargus.com/

Bandcamp: https://meadowargus.bandcamp.com/

Lyrics of “You're a Garden” by Meadow Argus

In my new suit

I'm so sartorial

My feathered boots

Made me arboreal

 

I got so high

In the oldest tree

Fell through the sky

A god inside of me

 

I got knocked out

By a branch above

Song in my blood

Of the spotted dove

 

In my new suit

I'm so sartorial

My worn-out boots

Are memorial

 

Down down down down down

I'm adrift in your love

Hearts alight up above

Down down down down down

I'm afloat on your love

Can I give it enough?

 

You're a garden, garden, garden

Garden of love

 

Down down down down down

Down down down down down

 

I washed my face

In the coldest stream

Old rainbow trout

Came and stole my dream

 

Hid them from me

Below a heavy stone

Left me with naught

But hair and skin and bone

 

You're a garden, garden, garden

Garden of love