15 Years Later: Better Than Ezra's How Does Your Garden Grow

For those who recognize the name Better Than Ezra, they probably write them off as a one-hit wonder; another “alt rock” band from the mid-1990’s that gained traction in the mid-90’s boom of adult oriented alternative rock, then slowly faded away. Their hit single, “Good,” still stands as a testament to incredible pop songwriting.

Deluxe, actually their second album, was released originally in 1993, then picked up two years later and reissued by Elektra Records. In 1996, they followed it up with an incredibly mature, somewhat dark effort—Friction, Baby. By this point, popular tastes had started to sway in a different direction. Friction didn’t so much “tank,” but it did nowhere near the “Iron Man numbers” they had moved of Deluxe. However, while Deluxe is still a great record, it’s theoretically twenty years old this year, so it just SOUNDS like the 90’s. Friction, Baby has aged incredibly well, and I would consider it to be one of my favorite records of all time.

In the fall of 1998, I was a sophomore in high school. And I remember picking up a copy of BTE’s fourth album, How Does Your Garden Grow? on a trip to Wal-Mart to procure school supplies. Complex, frustrating, experimental, and even a little inaccessible at times, How Does Your Garden Grow?  is an album so good, it got Better Than Ezra dropped from Elektra Records.

I say that in jest, however. It is actually a really good album. Because if it weren’t, why would I make a big deal out of revisiting it on the 15^th anniversary of its release?

The Wikipedia for the album says it was critically lauded, but it obviously failed commercially. From an artistic standpoint, it was a huge risk. Sure there are “alt rock” moments, and there was even a single that was somewhat popular—“At The Stars.” But as a whole, running almost an hour, it’s a record connected loosely by shared themes and ideas, shedding the sound the band had, and replacing it with heavy use of Rhodes keyboards, vintage analog synthesizers, sampling, and impressively rich sounding production values.

 Garden treads an interesting line—as a whole, it’s amazing; and there are obviously the tracks that stand out more from the rest. But once you start to pick it apart, there are some clunkers—or at least some head scratchers.

The opening track, for example—“Je Ne M'en Souviens Pas,” which translated means “I do not remember.” It’s also the name of a painting by Salvador Dali. It’s almost a cut-and-paste collage of a song—weird, spoken word lyrics, even weirder non sequitur bits of conversation over the top of that, a snippet of vocals nabbed from a song that comes later in the album, and jazz flute. This then goes right into the song “One More Murder,” officially the first single from the record, which was also, for some reason, featured on the soundtrack to the 1998 X-Files movie. I seem to remember reading a negative review of the song in Rolling Stone, with there being some kind of comparison drawn to trip-hop, which even 15 years later, I still fail to see.

The album begins to find its pacing with the single, “At The Stars,” which is I think the most traditionally structured Better Than Ezra/Pop Song on the album. It also is a sign of things to come from the songwriting capabilities of front-Ezra Kevin Griffin—a talent he would show in the early 2000’s when co-writing tracks for others.

The next two tracks, “Like it Like That,” and “Allison Foley,” when left in the context of the record as a whole are fine, but removed and looked at independently, they’re not the best. “Under You,” is a straight up slow-jam for you and your boo—similar in the vein to “WWOZ” and “Happy Endings” from Friction, Baby.

I think my favorite song on the record comes at the halfway point—“Live Again.” It has so many things working in its favor: sharp, crisp production on the drum tracks, somber Rhodes piano, and a subtle desperation in the lyrics.

Better Than Ezra- Live Again

Following that up, the awkward “Happy Day Mama” is about as rough as the aforementioned “Like it Like That.” But then, thankfully, there’s a run of four excellent songs in a row—the heavy “Pull,” the epic and string laden “Particle,” “Beautiful Mistake”—a song full of real talk about an absentee father, and then finally “Everything in 2’s,” a song that serves as a bit of a follow up to “Live Again”—similar structure, but opposing lyrics: in “Live Again,” it’s “make me live again,” while in “Everything in 2’s,” it’s “you make me whole again.”

“New Kind of Low” is a bizarre song that arrives near the end—it’s divided into two parts: “Low” and “Coma.” Lyrically, I have no idea what this song is about, and it opens with a bit of a cringe inducer—“I push the limits of good taste, whenever I open my mouth. You got a worm in your year, like Chekou from Kahn.” At five minutes plus, the brash, bratty punk of the first half begins to slow down and then comes to an abrupt and noisy stop about a minute and twenty seconds in. The rest of the song is, I guess, considered to be the “Coma” portion—giving off OK Computer kind of vibes.

The final track, the contemplative “Waxing or Waning?” is the kind of song that would only work as a closing song—lyrically, it seems like a continuation of the relationship mentioned in “Under You.” There’s a sadness to “Waxing or Waning?” but as the final guitar plucks and trumpet notes slow down and end, there’s about a fifteen second epilogue of strings fading off into the distance that perhaps indicate a sense of hope.

Better Than Ezra- Beautiful Mistake

Better Than Ezra- Waxing or Waning? 

Far from a concept album, the album is loosely constructed around the nighttime, with the expression “A Series of Nocturnes” appearing in the fine print on the cover. After sticking to a pretty straightforward alternative rock format, How Does Your Garden Grow? was possibly a little “too artistic” to be grasped by the record buying public as a whole. Or at least it was weird enough to alienate the people who just liked them because of “Good,” or “Desperately Wanting.”

This also represents the last time that the band took themselves this seriously. Sure there are some “fun” moments on Garden, but as a whole, I’d say it’s not to be trifled with. However, on each subsequent release, Better Than Ezra all but forgotten about risk taking, and have focused, primarily, on what they do best—adult contemporary alt rock.

Between 2001 and 2009, with lengthy breaks throughout, the band has released three more LPs. Sure, there are incredible pop gems on them—2005’s Before The Robots is, for the most part, a fairly solid pop/rock record, and the lead single from 2009’s Paper Empire, “Absolutely Still,” is probably the best example of how Kevin Griffin has a knack for songwriting.

But there are also the clunkers—2001’s Closer—long out of print due to the label it was on folding—featured the single “Extra Ordinary,” that unfortunately included some faux-rapping on Griffin’s part (yeowch.) There’s also the odd ball, cringe inducing “Juicy,” from Before The Robots. And for some reason, a song called “Hell No,” on Paper Empire.

Earlier this year, Better Than Ezra played How Does Your Garden Grow? from start to finish at a Mardi Gras show in their beloved hometown of New Orleans. For an album so complex and layered, it would have been interesting to see how well it translated from record to stage.

I would say that Garden is an important record in shaping my musical development as a youngster, and I’d say that it’s pretty impressive that 15 years after the fact, I still have the CD—meaning I haven’t sold it to a second hand store, only years later to be all like, “Oh shit I really liked that! Gotta buy a new one now!” Or that it hasn’t ended up in our basement on the shelf of what we call our B-Squad discs; albums good enough to keep, but not good enough to display upstairs in the living room.

And I’d say that even though they are total relic of the 90’s, Better Than Ezra are still a band that I give enough of a shit about, that when they release a new album, I think, “Oh hey. Better Than Ezra released a new album.”

Like many records from my life that I’ve held onto, and formed some kind of attachment to, How Does Your Garden Grow? takes me back to specific times and places—the school bus home, with headphones over my ears, the cassette deck of the mini-van I learned how to drive in. It’s orange spine has been in the B’s of my CD collection for 15 years now—it’s kind of hard to believe because it’s album that is still full of surprises every time I listen to it.