A frustrated narrator speaks about their relationship in gardening terms in “Sun Song.”

Track: “Sun Song”
Album: Hot Garden Stomp (1993)

The early recordings can be tough on the ears. The production on Hot Garden Stomp is poor, no doubt, but it’s still the same John Darnielle. He once went through every song on the album and described the likelihood of him playing any of them ever again at a live show, and while you aren’t going to hear “Sun Song” on the summer tour this year, you can hear the seeds of every song that followed it.

The narrator yells at a partner about their shortcomings through an extended gardening metaphor. It starts easy, but as John Darnielle tortures the metaphor we begin to feel the pain of the speaker. “There are certain gardening skills that you don’t have yet,” they bark, and we know this is about something very important to them. “There are certain gardening secrets you don’t know,” they conclude, with a finality that no one else could deliver.

I’d understand any fan that had difficulty getting into the early stuff, but “Sun Song” features a set of lines that explains John Darnielle’s humor and writing technique better than most:

“You said the soil looked nitrogen poor
Well, don’t you worry about the soil looking nitrogen poor
I think that’s my problem if the soil is nitrogen poor
But for myself it looks kind of nitrogen rich”

The extended use of “poor” drills the point home. It’s repetitive to the point of being almost silly, but that reinforces how insistent this narrator is about what they feel. They will not be swayed and, in fact, are entrenched in an opposite position. They’re talking about something bigger than mulch and plants, but we’ve all had this argument. It looks funny when you’re outside looking in, but if you’re the one defending the plants, then dammit, they’re fine.