Andrew Listens to...May Flowers

It's Chicago Spring Pt.2! The leaves are unfurling and the flowers are starting to blossom. So, let's listen to some songs about Flowers in honor of the season.

Today I came upon a lilac bush in bloom. And the stress of a three-hour car drive, the residual ick of five days of fever the week before, and all of the other toxic mental crud drained away. That’s the power of May flowers, the return of life and the promise of future growth. A month ago, I was bogged down by the grey rains, but now it’s all coming up roses.

Andrew Listens to… May Flowers (Linked to Spotify)

1. The Mountain Song by TopHouse

2. Flowers in your Hair by The Lumineers

3. Flowers by Miley Cyrus

4. Flowers by Eva Noblezada (Hadestown Cast Album)

5. Wildflowers by The Wailin’ Jennys

6. Wildflowers by Maddie Poppe

7. Sunflower by Rex Orange County

8. Sunflower (feat. Steve Lacy) by Vampire Weekend

9. Sunflower by Swae Lee and Post Malone

10. Sunflower by We Banjo 3

11. La Vie En Rose by Lucy Dacus

The List

The big folk pop moment of the 2010s, think Mumford & Sons or the Lumineers, was really perfect for me. But I had thought the moment had ended. Sure, Lord Huron and Birdtalker are still keeping up that good work, but it’s not breaking through into the popular zeitgeist and that made me sad. Cue “The Mountain Song” by TopHouse. A blend of bluegrass, folk, rock and a heavy dose of pop, TopHouse really does harken back to the folkpop of the previous decade. But where are the flowers? The lyric that qualifies this song is, “We climbed a mountain/And I picked wildflowers and put 'em in her hair/ And at the top we found a meadow/ And danced barefoot in the grass”. In the chorus, the constant refrain asks why do people climb mountains, and I think the flowers represent the answer to that question. Why do people climb mountains? To experience natural beauty with a loved one. Flowers represent those delicate moments of the sublime.

Speaking of folk pop, I would be remiss to not include The Lumineers’ 2012 song, “Flowers in your Hair”. The Lumineers make simple music. As founding member Jeremiah Fraites said, "We're not reinventing the wheel or doing anything that different, the songs are super simple. The ideas themselves are very simple ideas. Anyone who can play an instrument can play a Lumineers song.” Ultimately, the power of The Lumineers comes from their simplicity, easy to play, easy to hum, catchy in the melody. And so, what if there’s not a lot of depth in the lyrics. In “Flowers in your Hair”, the flowers are a memory from childhood, when the protagonist, “romanticized/the time I saw/ Flowers in your hair”. Flowers evoke beauty, but also ephemerality. In a song about growing up and becoming jaded, the flowers are long gone but not forgotten.

As a Millenial, I’ve seen Miley Cyrus through a lot of diverse (and questionable) choices, musical and otherwise. And for a long time, I pigeonholed her into the same niche as Justin Bieber, a charismatic former child performer, who was big on personality and lacking in actual adult talent. But then in 2012, she put out a video on YouTube of a stripped-down acoustic cover of “Jolene” and I realized that she not only has pipes but had been emulating the wrong icons. Miley Cyrus is actually an old woman and every day that she has moved in that direction has brought her closer to her idealized self. “Flowers” is a peak in that journey. It’s an easy yet powerful idea, that after a breakup, you don’t need a man to hold her hand, talk for hours, or buy her the eponymous flowers. The flowers represent all of the ways that you can love yourself.

Anais Mitchell is a mainstay of this blog. So, one of the first songs that I thought of for this playlist is Eurydice’s beautiful solo, “Flowers” from Hadestown. Now I normally prefer Anais or the concept album to later Broadway performances, but Eva Noblezada brings such aching resignation that I had to pick her version. The song is about Eurydice’s choice to take Hades’ offer to join him in the underworld, exhausted as she is by the buffeting wilds of fate on the surface. But as the song progresses, her memories fade, leaving one last image, “Flowers, I remember fields of flowers/ Soft beneath my heels/ Walking in the sun, I remember someone/ Someone by my side, turned his face to mine/ And then I turned away, into the shade”. Orpheus’ name and form disappear, leaving only the fields of flowers.

One of Alex’s favorite artists is the folk trio, The Wailin Jennys, and their cover of Tommy Petty’s, “Wildflowers” is one of my favorite flower songs. The Wailin Jennys are a Canadian folk and bluegrass band, and where they excel beyond almost any other band I know, (runners up The Staves) is in their intricate harmonies. As the lyrics go, “You belong among the wildflowers/ You belong in a boat out at sea/You belong with your love on your arm/ You belong somewhere you feel free”. The wildflowers symbolize the freedom of the natural world, un-gardened, unstructured, free. When I listen to this cover, I hear the harmonies and think about the braiding voices as braiding a flower crown, under the bright sun and the bluest sky. That’s happiness.

Another wildflower song comes courtesy of Spotify Discovery, Maddie Poppe’s “Wildflowers”. If you know Maddie Poppe, it’s probably because she won American Idol in 2018. While I didn’t have that context until researching for this post, it makes sense given her reality tv pop stylings (if you dialed up the pop on Ingrid Michaelson up toward Kelly Clarkson, you’d get Maddie Poppe). The song itself is about Maddie’s roots and upbringing and how those have shaped her life. As the lyrics go:

“When I see clouds, I see faces

When I see roads, I see places where we could go

When I meet strangers, I say "Hello"

I come from where the wild wildflowers grow

When I hear thunder, I sing along

'Cause I'm the daughter of where I'm from

A starlit sky will always guide me home

I come from where the wild wildflowers grow”

In this case, the flowers represent the wild freedom of youth, unbounded creativity and open communication. It’s almost a mythic place- a homeland where brilliant and unfettered people are formed. Maddie really emphasizes that these aren’t just flowers, but wildflowers. Her people aren’t simply pretty things, but unconfined.

The next four songs are all from a playlist I made years ago, all named Sunflower. I really loved that I had organically come across such wild and diverse songs that all had the same name. The first was “Sunflower” by Rex Orange County. Rex Orange County is the professional name of Alexander James O'Connor, a British artist whose music NPR Music's Zoë Jones described as "a bright blend of hip-hop, jazz, and bedroom pop". The song is about a new infatuation, unsteady and clingy. The flowers of the song are referenced in the chorus: “Tryna keep my mind at bay/Sunflower still grows at night/ Waiting for a minute till the sun's seen through my eyes”. I think sunflowers are such great metaphors for new love because they’re bright and turn toward the sun during the day and continue to move toward the sun even in the darkness. This song’s lyrics do make me cringe a bit because I used to be much needier as a partner and I associate this level of desperation with a much younger (and less mature) version of myself. But musically, this is a BOP.

The next “Sunflower” comes from Vampire Weekend feat. Steve Lacy. I approached Vampire Weekend’s 2019 “Father of the Bride” knowing that it was a critical darling (and that the internet judged Vampire Weekend Stans as elitist and pretentious), so I was as skeptical as when I first listened to The Mountain Goats. But then of course I loved it immediately. It’s a funky, groovy song, powered by the guitar virtuoso Steve Lacy. Unlike in Rex Orange County’s “Sunflower”, the Vampire Weekend version is about how the sunflower is always ready for the day (“Sunflower in the morning/Standing in the garden/All before you wake”), but that when lying next to a lover, nothing can actually make you get up and do the day (“No power can compel you/Out into the daylight/Let that evil wait”). So don’t be like the sunflower, don’t always strive and stress up towards your goals. Go ahead and let that evil wait.

At the same time as Vampire Weekend, Swae Lee and Post Malone released their version of “Sunflower”. This song was originally produced for Post Malone’s 2019 album Hollywood’s Bleed but gained major recognition as part of the blockbuster animated feature Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The song hinges on the metaphor that sunflowers are loyal and indefatigable, much like the girl who Swae and Post are singing about. Honestly, she’s a lot more loyal than either of the singers, who are always coming and going, and leaving her in the dust. As the chorus goes, “And you'll be left in the dust, unless I stuck by ya/ You're the sunflower, I think your love would be too much”. I hadn’t paid much attention to the lyrics because the song feels like a fun party song, but wow, they’re a couple of dicks. She loves so much, but she’s seen as so clingy. It’s funny to get the mirror image of Rex Orange County’s cringy clinginess shown as a romantic goal with this girl who will be left in the dust. I think that’s the fun of having so many songs on the same theme.

The final “Sunflower” comes from the Celtgrass band We Banjo 3, a band that fused traditional Irish music with American bluegrass, all built around the eponymous banjo. Like The Wailin Jennys, We Banjo 3 has an incredible ability to bring intricate harmonies to life. They balance fiddle, banjo, trumpet, and even a clarinet at one point, creating a really romantic sound. In this version, both the protagonist and his love are both the sunflowers and the “light that lets me grow”. I’m reminded of the meme that says that in the absence of the sun, sunflowers will turn toward each other. It’s a simple idea, that in a partnership, you should be both the sunflower and the sun, helping each other grow and showing dedication to each other. After three other songs about the expectations and pedestals of the sunflower metaphor, it’s nice to settle on one that feels so wholesome.

The last flower song on this list comes with a hefty amount of context. I was first introduced to French cabaret singer Edith Piaf in the 1995 classic, Babe, the song was “Non, je ne regrette rien". And all I knew was that she sounded like the definition of sophistication and style. Then in 2007, I was in my cinema phase and was obsessed with “La Vie en Rose”, a biography of Piaf that won two Oscars. That was my introduction to the titular song, which bounced around the back of my brain as so romantic and said and FRENCH. Which then takes us to 2015, when I directed Bea Cordelia’s one woman show, “Chasing Blue” and as part of the pre-show, she would listen to the song while luxuriating in the bath. I heard it a hundred times and that rose tinted lens colored every memory. Which finally brings us to 2019, when I discovered Lucy Dacus, in my first month of using Spotify. I didn’t know who Lucy Dacus was and how big she would get, but I adored how this song both felt deeply committed to the original and also as deeply committed to breaking new music ground. It took all of my context and made it something new. And I will always appreciate a cover that so succinctly is both a memory and something new. “La Vie en Rose” is about the romance of the life of the rose, the over-the-top showers of angelic choruses and the exchanges of hearts and souls. It’s beautiful, it’s hopeful, and it’s how I want to go into the rest of my month.

Thank you for going on this journey with me.

Next Time: Andrew Listen to… the Best Pop Music (TBD) Feat. John MacGaffey