The Garden Rules
by Snow Patrol (featuring Lissie)

Album: Fallen Empires (2011)
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Songfacts®:

  • This ballad entwines Gary Lightbody's vocals with backing from US folk singer Lissie. "She sings from a place of inspiration," Lightbody told Q magazine, "all we said was Give it some Gimme Shelter! And boy, did she."
  • The song recalls Lightbody's childhood in Bangor, Northern Ireland. He explained its meaning to The Sun: "It's about my first love and the innocence of youth, playing in the garden. It's a song about my personal experience of that, but also a universal thing about the girl you fall in love with first. You're never able to really tell her, then she goes off and has her life and she'll never know how you feel about her."

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