You were born in Australia on July 8, 1882, and you’d have been 143 years old today, had you not unfortunately died at the age of 78, in White Plains, New York, on February 20, 1961.
Oh, well. Can’t have everything.
What I can have, though, is an enduring memory of your music, and your love of of the quintessential English countryside, perhaps best exemplified in your adaptation of the traditional folk composition, “Country Gardens”:
I don’t know who wrote the lyrics, which came a bit later. Certainly, you didn’t want to own up to them. But in 1962, the song, recorded by Jimmie Rodgers, with lyrics written by someone, reached #5 on the British singles charts:
It became a staple and something of a talisman to British expatriates worldwide.
Grainger himself–who may not have been a very likeable character, as research reveals–didn’t like the tune much, and–late in life–referred to it as his “albatross,” saying that
The typical English country garden is not often used to grow flowers in; it is more likely to be a vegetable plot. So you can think of turnips as I play it.
Yeah, well, Percy. I loathe turnips, so I’ll go the other way, thanks very much.
And I’ll remember my roots. (See what I did there?)
I aspire to that garden you described the first time around, and I’m doing my best to get there. One plant at a time:
And yet. Because I’m something of an iconoclast (with a sense of humor), I remember with fondness a song from later in the 1960s which spoke to my mother (not much of a gardener herself) with revised lyrics (by Steve Benbow) to the Grainger melody. I haven’t found it on the Internet (yet), but (as I often say) song lyrics stick to me like glue, so I still got them from over half a century ago. You can sing along, if you know the tune:
Why do the flowers never seem to grow in my English country garden?
Here are some unlikely reasons that I know, which I hope you’ll surely pardon.
Squirrels (?) in the flower beds; sparrow droppings on the sheds
Stick to the walls, and ha-a-a-rden
Why do the weeds all propagate their seeds
In my English country garden?Sometimes it seems that I’ll never be a successful vegetable gro-o-wer
So I’ve decided what I will do, and to Hell with Percy Thrower
Cover it with broken bricks, get a ton of Ready-Mix
Spread it and let it ha-ah-ah-ar-den
I contemplate a concrete estate
Not an English country garden.
Perhaps I’m suffering from a mild case of PTSD, in that my once next-door neighbors in the UK actually did this. Concreted over their lovely English garden. Right next door to ours, the ones which my own parents so hard to encourage. What a waste.
So my perspective is that–from personal experience–perhaps the last best English Country Gardens advocates may be found across the pond.
People like me.
Yep.
