(Nothing But) Flowers

magpiemaniac has got it! david byrne an anti-enviornmentalist?! no way.

its just irony... byrne compares the earth without materialism as a type of garden of eden and humans as adams and eves. and arent we supposed to be satisfied with what was available to us... this garden of eden that offers us everything? but because were human, we are never satisfied, just like the character in this song.

i think byrne is saying that now that we have manipulated the earth to reap its benefits and instilled this sense of materialism there is no going back to the days of the garden of eden or the days of hunters and gathers beucase all of us we think like the character in this song. "i cant used to this life style!!" and thats the worst part. we'd actually miss dairy queens and parking lots.

I like the contrast with songs like "Big Yellow Taxi", which complains that they paved paradise and put up a parking lot. Here we have someone in the opposite position. Where'd my parking lot go? Maybe civilization isn't all bad.

To me he is using the absurdity of his lyrics to point out how we are destroying the planet.

I think this song is about the way some of us tend to idealize "nature", or primitivistic, edenic fantasies, when the truth is, if we were all of a sudden transported to a place like that, we'd have no idea what to do with ourselves.

I love the part about the highway.

I've always liked Byrne's different interpretations of paradise and heaven. I think here the narrator is just honest: he doesn't like this natural beauty, and he'll be damned if he's going to pretend to. Tbh, I think if I was in the world described here I would miss all the stuff we have now, and no amount of flowers would act as compensation. I think this song may also be about how European and American cultures have built their own heaven around themselves, and filled it with conviniences that make the world around us like a paradise. We don't really need much more to perfect the manmade world around us. Still, I suppose one man's treasure is another man's rubbish. I'm sure there are people who would rather live in the world Byrne describes than the Western "paradise".

I always thought of this as a perfect fish out of water song, the kind Byrne did so well with the "unreliable narrator" he has used in so many other instances, such as "The Big Country", only in this case the problem is literally being out there with the fish, the water, and no appliances or modern conveniences. It's part of his narrator's discomfit with other aspects of modern life, but in this instance I can really imagine it as also poking a bit of fun at his fellow New Yorkers, in particular those who at times loudly profess the advantages of the city over the country.

In many ways this song completes the circle with that narrator, who is so important in Byrne's writing, and who started off memorably in the early songs and is here at the end with a sophisticated rant on the T Heads' last album.

A truly fabulous song, right up there with the best by the band.

I think the song could be taken as a meditation on the twisting of our 'human nature' by civilisation; a post-apocalyptic paradise has arisen, and we should all be joyful that we, and the Earth, have been given a second chance; instead, the narrator pines for the old conveniences he had before the fall. It's quite cute, really; the petty little things he misses, the microwaves, Dairy Queens and 7-11s -- heck, I know I'd miss my insulin if I were in his position! "I can't get used to this lifestyle!"

OMG I signed up to this site just to post here.. this is the most environmental song ever! i dont think its necissarily about peak oil.. more about unsustainability and the fact that somethings gonna give eventually, and when it does, were going to be ok, well live like we did before (way before).. sure well miss seven elevens and microwaves.. but well still be here, alive, sustainable, at one with nature.. look how it starts, adam and eve, buitiful and strong, waterfalls and birds in the tress ect... flowers everywhere.. its a pretty positive vision of what may come.. anywho i love this song..

I think a lot of people here are trying to project what they want the song to be about, rather than putting what it actually seems to be saying.

To me, it's obviously about the irony of enviromentalist culture; that the kinda people who sit complaining about consumerism do so in starbucks.

If you reverse the song, had it talking about a beautiful river or something rather than a highway, that section of the song would be classed as "moving" rather than humerous; what's the difference in finding beauty in nature and finding beauty in human development?

But, no, I don't think he's being anti-enviromentalist. Just pointing out the fact that there's no way back to a hunter gatherer society, so stop moaning and being all romantic about the "good old days" and just do the best with what we've got.

It's called evolution. Society evolves in the same way that nature does. Everything is industrialised because that's what we wanted. Now we need to find a way to balance meeting our needs and not destroying our planet. Too much focus on preserving the natural enviroment, and we wouldn't be able to cope, and miss out on the kinds of scientific developments that save lives. Too much focus on satisfying human needs and not enough on preserving the enviroment, and we'll live in a barron, smoggy wasteground.

I think this song is about how people can't get satisfied... I mean, people concern about the world the way it is, with all this factorys and companys, they complain a lot, but if suddenly it turned inside out, and there was daisies instead of pizza huts, people wuold be complaining too... The song is a vision of a person who is questioning other people: would you really want a better world? would you get used to it?