“This just can’t be / I can’t believe it / weeds in my Garden of Eden. / This just can’t be / I can’t conceive it. / Tell me this is all a lie so I can cry myself back to my dreams.”
Auburn Court bills themselves as “Women Who Rock,” and they don’t hesitate to prove it from the first beats and chords of “Garden of Eden” off their “On the Brink” CD. (You might have heard the CD’s title song in East Coast Chopper Kingpin Billy Lane’s movie “Blood, Sweat and Gears.”)
As for the occasional misconception that they’re a Christian band because they have a song called “Garden of Eden” with some Bible verses in it, singer/lyricist Erin Kost laughs, “Uh…NO. If people listen to any of our songs, they find out pretty quickly what we’re about.”
“We LOVE ‘Garden of Eden,’” says bassist Candace Letterman. “It’s an awesome song,” agrees drummer and twin sister Crystal. “We love playing this song. The crowd gets into it, and we get a lot of energy from that.”
“I can’t hear my thoughts / lava's flooding my brain. / My eyes are covered in gloss / 'cuz what they see they can't face. / Now my heart is a pump / gushing heat to my limbs. / But it's squished by the lump / in my throat ’cuz of him. / I think I'm gonna fall down, / I think I'm gonna throw up. / The room is hazing around / 'cuz now I'm hating your love. / This just can't be….”
Erin explains, “I wanted to capture the feeling of surprise when you find out someone’s cheating on you – that minute of complete shock. There’s flash of heat like lava, you’re blind for a moment. It’s the physical side of the shock. Your hormones flip, you sweat, you’re paralyzed. It’s like you’ve hit an air pocket in your life. And it’s not only that you can’t believe it, you can’t even conceive of it being possible. That’s what the chorus is about: You thought you were in paradise – the Garden of Eden – but suddenly see there’s weeds in it.”
“And now my body's a brick / well, every part but my lip / despite me biting it down, / don't let the tears slip out. / Just wanted a taste / now bitter bile in your mouth. / You can't put it back, you can't swallow it down. / I'm pointing at you / how can you point back at me? / We're both covered in dirt / as we blame from our knees. / This just can't be….”
When she was writing the lyrics, Erin says, “I thought that moment of complete shock was similar to the flash Adam and Eve had when everything changed in a second. And just like Adam and Eve, when there’s a betrayal – when relationships fail – sometimes both sides are at fault even though they’re blaming each other.” Crystal adds, “When there’s cheating in a relationship, you can often blame both people.”
After the second verse, guitarist Sarah Dawn and the bass and drums smoothly take a back seat while Erin speaks a series of verses detailing Adam and Eve betraying God by eating an apple from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge in the Bible’s opening chapter, Genesis.
“And the man saw that the tree was desirable, / and he took the apple / and ate it.”
As Sarah’s guitar gets gradually louder and more intense, the excerpt culminates in the serpent being condemned to slither on the ground, and before Adam and Eve are exiled,
“God said to the man, / ‘You will return to the ground from which you were taken. / For you are DIRT, / and to the dirt you shall return.’”
“We took a bunch of different Bibles and pieced together the parts we liked to make it our own,” Erin explains. Crystal says, “We wanted a little more drama in the song, to drive the point home. Before, it was a guitar solo rather than the instruments underneath the vocals.” Erin elaborates: “The decision for me to speak it was a last-minute one in the studio while we were recording it. The first time I did it that way, the engineers put a bunch of effects on the voices of God and Satan. But we liked it better without those effects.”
“Now my garden’s all weeds / and I feel so ashamed. / My body's covered with leaves, / and what the hell is your name?! / There’s blood on your hands, You’re leaning up on the tree. / Who’s that snake in the sand / who made you do this to me? / My rose-colored shades / are all covered in ash / that arose from the flames of your instant gratification.”
When the betrayal is revealed, “The garden went from beautiful,” Erin says, “to barren. They’re ashamed the moment they’re caught. She says, ‘What the hell is your name?!,’ meaning both that she thought she knew him, and because he just got busted, Eve’s trying to play it off to God, like ‘I don’t know him.’ But they’re both at fault.” And the “rose-colored shades?” “In our song’s more modern version, maybe all along the ‘garden’ really wasn’t that great, but she wasn’t seeing reality.”
What’s being shouted in the background between verses? “That’s our ‘man-chorus,’” Crystal laughs. “They’re just singing ‘la-la-la!” Erin explains. “Garden of Eden’s” music is hooky and steady, and reflects a well-thought-out and careful songcraft that matches the lyrics. Music and lyrics vary in tone and tempo, adding interesting changes. Near the end, the song’s bridge is slower, making the final kick-in of the chorus that much more powerful. “The song’s intense and aggressive,” Crystal says. “You can’t play it wussy!”
Auburn Court will be performing at this year’s All Access Music Awards. Listen to “Garden of Eden,” find out more about this talented band’s new CD scheduled for release in January, and the many ways these women and their producer Tom Boxwell are working hard to hit it big ASAP, at www.AuburnCourt.com. The band’s closing thoughts? “We’re pumped! And we’d love to go on tour!”
