No-mow May
On April 29, in the early afternoon, a local landscape gardener stopped by our new-old place to talk over our plans for the grounds, a substantial aspect of which is replacing the established lawn (which is sloped with boulders and moss and mature trees and so on) with some sort of ground cover like clover and creeping thyme, because we do not want to have to engage in mowing an acre of lawn.
Very late that night, I watched an episode of “Escape to the Country” (Suffolk, S25 E7, originally released October 7, 2024) where they just happened to talk about “no-mow May.” While I noticed the “no-mow” coincidence, it simply didn’t occur to me that May was only two days away.
As I woke up the following morning (this morning, in fact), my brain was already singing “No-mow May,” and I have been working almost feverishly all day to capture those melodies from my insides, getting the basics all scored, which was all very waltz-like, as well as kinda Gaelic-y in an Enya-ward sort of a way… as if it were reaching for ceilidh. And there is such a thing as Gaelic waltz. The way that felt, no doubt influenced by my recent exposure to a bunch of Ben Folds music with a buoyant waltzy quality (like “Fragile” and “Kylie from Connecticut”), led to my writing down the words, “lilting rhythm.” The other three patterned after that, like “tripping tempo” and so on.
And I had no idea that World Naked Gardening Day was in May until I went to write this song. (Turns out that it’s this Saturday… and nope, I won’t be. I have an ICE protest to attend.)
So the lyrics were a fun puzzle, where I ended up supporting the waltz rhythm by affixing the -ah and -oh syllables… which I can blame on a recent Irish TRY channel binge (where, yep, they said the “cockles and mussels, alive, alive-oh” thing that I’m sure you’ve heard before, and they also threw in a bucket o’ boyos to boot). And all of the longer words were predicated on the need to mention the pollinators.
Finally, I have nothing against kitchen gardeners. The lyric was simply a matter that I needed a kind of gardener that started with a /k/ to match up with the /k/ in “crankedy ass.”
The cover is a picture of Stanley Park in Vancouver, BC.
Lyrics
I love a lilting-ah rhythm-oh
swaying through meadows of
wild, wild flowers
floating past feasting fine pollinators
in
no-mow May
No-mow May
Starts today
No-mow May
Waltz away
Oh!
No-mow May
I dig a bouncing-ah buoyance-oh
cartwheels on grasses down
green, green hills
gamboling with crankedy ass kitchen gardeners
in
no-mow May
No-mow May
Starts today
No-mow May
Waltz away
Oh!
No-mow May
Derby and Indy and Star Wars Day
World Naked — dare I say — Gardening Day
Mayday one, mayday two, mayday three, Yay!
I crave a tripping-ah tempo-oh
overgrown pathways with
old, old secrets
striding in comfy damn wafflestompers
in
no-mow May
No-mow May
Starts today
No-mow May
Waltz away
Oh!
No-mow May
I dig a swinging-ah cadence-oh
whirling in bedrooms on
shag, shag rugs
luring the loveliness in from outside
in
no-mow May
No-mow May
Starts today
No-mow May
Waltz away
Oh!
No-mow May
No-mow May
Make it stay
No-mow May
Hip hooray!
Oh!
No-mow May