Stevie Wonder's "Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants": The Perfect Soundtrack for Your Garden

Photograph by Rio Brown

About the Album

Although "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson is a great song with great lyrics, it is more of a social commentary about the liberal, social elite than a tribute to any garden.  Yet, believe it or not, there is not only a song, but an entire album that is a tribute to plants.  Stevie Wonder's Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, released October 30, 1979, is the perfect soundtrack for your garden. Released three years after Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life, it had initial popular success, but was quickly attacked by critics as being "vague and overambitious" Wikipedia.   However, that seems to be the normal reaction of critics following a major album such as Songs in the Key of Life.  U2 later received the same treatment with Rattle and Hum after The Joshua Tree.  Personally, I often like the album that follows the "masterpiece" better than the masterpiece itself.  Such is the case with Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants.

The album is the sound track of a little-known environmental documentary by the same name and Stevie, being blind, used an innovative process to score the film.  According to an entry in Wikipedia, "Michael Braun, the film's producer, [would] describe each visual image in detail, while the sound engineer, Gary Olzabal, specified the length of a passage [and] this information was processed to a four-track tape (with the film's sound on one of the tracks), leaving Wonder space to add his own musical accompaniment"  Wikipedia.     

Over time, an appreciation for the album has developed.  In a review for All Music, Andy Kellman has the following to say:

 Plants is a sprawling, fascinating album. Though it is dominated by synthesizer-heavy instrumental pieces with evocative titles, there is a handful of full-blown songs. The gorgeous, mostly acoustic ballad “Send One Your Love” was a Top Ten R&B single, while the joyous “Outside My Window” registered in the Top 60. Beyond that, there’s the deep classic “Come Back as a Flower,” a gently lapping, piano-led ballad featuring Syreeta on vocals. Otherwise, there are playfully oddball tracks like “Venus’ Flytrap and the Bug,” where Wonder chirps “Please don’t eat me!” through robotizing effects, and “A Seed’s a Star,” which incorporates crowd noise, a robotized monologue, and a shrieking Tata Vega over a funkier and faster version of Yellow Magic Orchestra. The album is not for everyone, but it suited its purpose and allowed its maker an amount of creative wiggle room that few major-label artists experience.  (All Music)

Personally, I think the album is brilliant and a perfect soundtrack for any garden.  And if you live in a dingy, one room basement apartment with leaking water pipes overhead, well the album is still brilliant.  And I just love the fact that it took a blind man to capture in music the world of plants so vividly.  Hell, I even wrote a poem and here it is.  I'm not sure how good it is, but Stevie's "Venus Fly Trap and the Bug," which follows, is amazing.

It Took a Blind Man to See the Journey
Through the Secret Life of Plants  

Wonder—

Man, you move me.

Light sparks,

speaker crackles,
dragon fly flickers
blue jeweled.

Heat heavy jazz

drips down
dazzling broad
leaves to drop

 ker-plunk

 in smooth blue

synthesizer pool.