Take Up Your Spade

Album: Sun Midnight Sun (2012)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • A track from Nickel Creek fiddle player Sara Watkins' second solo album, this song was inspired by gardening. "I've always loved farming and gardening analogies to life," she said in her Songfacts interview. "I used to work with my Grandma in her garden and there'd be these berry bushes and weeding things and everything had an analogy to life: keeping your garden clean, keeping the weeds out of your life, all of these things that I keep remembering every time I am out in my yard."
  • Watkins started writing this song in 2010 when she was performing as part of Transatlantic Sessions, a series of concerts broadcast by the BBC and RTE networks. She found these shows wonderfully congregational, and she envisioned a group of people singing on this track when started composing it.
  • Jackson Browne and Fiona Apple sing harmony vocals on this track and make appearances in the video, which features footage from the recording sessions at Zeitgeist Studio in Los Angeles, including shots of Watkins and her producer Blake Mills goofing around playing basketball.

    Watkins has performed with Browne and Apple at the Watkins Family Hour shows she does with her brother Sean at the Largo theater in Los Angeles. Sara has also toured with Browne, and Apple appears on another track from the album, "You're the One I Love."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

16 Songs With a Heartbeat

16 Songs With a HeartbeatSong Writing

We've heard of artists putting their hearts into their music, but some take it literally.

Tom Bailey of Thompson Twins

Tom Bailey of Thompson TwinsSongwriter Interviews

Tom stopped performing Thompson Twins songs in 1987, in part because of their personal nature: "Hold Me Now" came after an argument with his bandmate/girlfriend Alannah Currie.

Judas Priest

Judas PriestSongwriter Interviews

Rob Halford, Richie Faulkner and Glenn Tipton talk twin guitar harmonies and explain how they create songs in Judas Priest.

Butch Vig

Butch VigSongwriter Interviews

The Garbage drummer/songwriter produced the Nirvana album Nevermind, and Smashing Pumpkins' Gish and Siamese Dream.

Loudon Wainwright III

Loudon Wainwright IIISongwriter Interviews

"Dead Skunk" became a stinker for Loudon when he felt pressure to make another hit - his latest songs deal with mortality, his son Rufus, and picking up poop.

David Bowie Lyrics Quiz

David Bowie Lyrics QuizMusic Quiz

How well do you know your David Bowie lyrics? Take this quiz to find out.