How Does the Grass Grow?

Album: The Next Day (2013)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • The song title is part of a mantra used to assist in bayonet practice - "How does the grass grow? Blood, blood, blood!" Producer Tony Visconti explained to Rolling Stone: "It's about the way that soldiers are trained to kill other soldiers, how they have to do it so heartlessly. 'How Does the Grass Grow' is part of a chant that they're taught as they plunge their bayonets into a dummy."
  • The references to girls wearing "nylon skirts and sandals from Hungary" and boys riding their Riga mopeds appears to place this song somewhere in the Eastern Bloc during the communist Soviet era.
  • Bowie revives one of his earliest musical loves when he samples the hook motif from The Shadows' "Apache," sung as a "yah-yah-yah-yah."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Joe Ely

Joe ElySongwriter Interviews

The renown Texas songwriter has been at it for 40 years, with tales to tell about The Flatlanders and The Clash - that's Joe's Tex-Mex on "Should I Stay or Should I Go?"

Jason Newsted (ex-Metallica)

Jason Newsted (ex-Metallica)Songwriter Interviews

The former Metallica bassist talks about his first time writing a song with James Hetfield, and how a hand-me-down iPad has changed his songwriting.

Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World

Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat WorldSongwriter Interviews

Jim talks about the impact of "The Middle" and uses a tree metaphor to describe his songwriting philosophy.

Bill Medley of The Righteous Brothers

Bill Medley of The Righteous BrothersSongwriter Interviews

Medley looks back on "Unchained Melody" and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" - his huge hits from the '60s that were later revived in movies.

Glen Ballard

Glen BallardSongwriter Interviews

Glen Ballard talks about co-writing and producing Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill album, and his work with Dave Matthews, Aerosmith and Annie Lennox.

David Bowie Leads the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Men

David Bowie Leads the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired MenSong Writing

Bowie's "activist" days of 1964 led to Ziggy Stardust.