One Of My Father’s Favourite Songs

This week’s Song Lyric Sunday presented us with the task of choosing from an extraordinary catalogue of songs, which were produced by Clive Davis, or signed to one of the labels he is associated with. I glanced through dozens of hit songs, and came across one that I almost featured a couple of weeks ago of the theme of rain.

My dear papa loved Lynn Anderson’s “Rose Garden” album. He thought she had the most wonderful voice. So I was delighted to find that one of the most successful productions released during Clive Davis’ time at Columbia was this very album. The song “Rose Garden” topped the charts in sixteen countries around the world and also remained the biggest selling album by a female country artist for twenty-seven years.

It means a great deal to feature a song that my father loved and used to sing with delight.

Credits: Joe South

I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine there's gotta be a little rain sometime
When you take, you gotta give, so live and let live and let go, oh, oh, oh, oh
I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden

I could promise you things like big diamond rings
But you don't find roses growin' on stalks of clover
So you better think it over
Well, if sweet talking you could make it come true
I would give you the world right now on a silver platter
But what would it matter?
So smile for a while and let's be jolly; love shouldn't be so melancholy
Come along and share the good times while we can

I beg your pardon I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine there's gotta be a little rain sometime
I beg your pardon I never promised you a rose garden

I could sing you a tune and promise you the moon
But if that's what it takes to hold you I'd just as soon let you go
But there's one thing I want you to know
You'd better look before you leap; still waters run deep
And there won't always be someone there to pull you out
And you know what I'm talking about
So smile for a while and let's be jolly; love shouldn't be so melancholy
Come along and share the good times while we can

I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine, there's gotta be a little rain sometime

I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine, there's gotta be a little rain sometime