Songfacts®:

• According to the band's official biography Blowin' Free, Martin Turner wrote this about a plant growing in his garden. When he returned from a US tour it had shriveled up and died, so he wrote a song about it.
• In October 2008, Turner expanded on this in his on-line question and answer forum, saying it must "rank as a pretty bizarre song subject. I found this little weed growing in a crack in the path, fished it out and put in a pot with soil where it flourished and had sweet little yellow flowers darling. Went off on tour and asked my other half at the time to take good care of it, meaning give it a bit of water now and again. Came back six weeks later - dead as a dodo - bitch, I thought. So I wrote a song about it using a license called 'poetic'. Silly thing is, it was not Sorrel at all but some other plant, but I particularly liked the name Sorrel so I used that." >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 3