How Does Your Garden Grow?
How Does Your Garden Grow? is a 1998 album by American alternative rock trio Better Than Ezra. It was the band's fourth album, and their second with drummer Travis Aaron McNabb. It was released on August 25, 1998 by Elektra Records.
| How Does Your Garden Grow? | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | August 25, 1998 | |||
| Recorded | January 19 – March 30, 1998 | |||
| Genre | Alternative | |||
| Length | 58:25 | |||
| Label | Elektra | |||
| Producer | Malcolm Burn | |||
| Better Than Ezra chronology | ||||
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| Review scores | |
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| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
The style and content of the album overall is oriented with the night, with the album cover carrying the subtitle "A Series of Nocturnes". Though critically acclaimed, the album was a relative failure commercially, only peaking at #128 on the Billboard charts. The first single, "One More Murder" scraped the bottom end of the Billboard Modern Rock charts, while the second single, "At the Stars," performed better, becoming a Modern Rock and Adult Top 40 hit (and later covered by Howie Day). A third single, "Like it Like That," failed to chart.
"One More Murder" was featured on two NBC dramatic series—Homicide: Life on the Street and Third Watch. The song was also featured in an episode of Charmed and is also part of The X-Files: The Album.
The album's title is most likely derived from the nursery rhyme, "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary". "Je ne m'en souviens pas", the album's opening track, shares its title with a work by the Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí, with lyrical reference to Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa as well as New Orleans' Cabrini High School.
Following the release of How Does Your Garden Grow?, Elektra dropped the band. In 2013 the album was mixed into 5.1 surround sound from the original multitracks and released on DVD-Audio.[1]
Track listing
All tracks by Kevin Griffin
- "Je ne m'en Souviens pas" – 4:43
- "One More Murder" – 4:39
- "At the Stars" – 3:43
- "Like It Like That" – 2:44
- "Allison Foley" – 3:45
- "Under You" – 4:56
- "Live Again" – 4:24
- "Happy Day Mama" – 3:22
- "Pull" – 2:58
- "Particle" – 6:04
- "Beautiful Mistake" – 4:35
- "Everything in 2's" – 3:47
- "New Kind of Low: Low / Coma" – 5:17
- "Waxing or Waning?" – 3:21
Personnel
- Kevin Griffin – Guitar, Vocals, Rhodes, Piano, Chamberlin, VCS3
- Tom Drummond – Bass, Pedal Steel, MetaSynth, VCS3
- Travis Aaron McNabb – Drums, Percussion, Beat Box, VCS3, Optigan
Additional personnel
- Anthony Dagradi – Flute
- Mark Mullins – Trombone
- Brian Graber – Trumpet
- James Arthur Payne – Guitar, Vocals
- Karl Berger – Vibraphone