“Little Flowers” by Denison Witmer, Wednesday, April 26, 2023

In 2005, Denison Witmer released Are You a Dreamer? The album was released on the now defunct Chad Pearson-owned record label The Militia Group, home to a plethora of Christian and secular acts in the late '90s and early '00s. The former A&R guy at Tooth & Nail Records founded The Militia Group on similar values as the legendary label: musical variety. From underground punk rock bands like Brandston and The Beautiful Mistake to indie rock gems like Copeland and Lovedrug to mainstream successes like The Summer Set and Cartel and to indie folk acts like The New Frontiers and Denison Witmer, the label fostered talent for nearly 10 years before the label folded.  

HOW YOU FOUND ME, I STILL NEVER UNDERSTAND. "Little Flowers" opens Are You a Dreamer?  with simple acoustic guitar plucking. But in addition to guitar, Denison Witmer's dear friend and occasional housemate Sufjan Stevens appears playing banjo on the track. Stevens' 2005 release of Illinois was certainly a more dynamic album, but Wimter's simple Are You a Dreamer? feels like the soul underneath Stevens' at times avant-garde compositions--where he came from on releases like Michigan and Seven Swans. Are You a Dreamer? offers subtle dynamics, though, and lyrics come to the forefront. "Little Flowers" starts out pensive, maybe sad. And while the lyrics are forefront to the song, they are not straightforward. Listeners struggle to understand the speaker's relationship with subject of the song. From the first verse of the song in which Witmer lists the symbols of the colors of the flags that the subject of the song is waving to the mystical second verse in which the subject is "floating in the forest" when he meets that person and places his "stigmata on [the subject's] hands." Stigmata is a term for the wounds of Christ in Catholic mysticism--the hands, wrists, and feet which were nailed to the cross. 

YOU WERE OUTSIDE FLOATING IN THE FOREST. The chorus of "Little Flowers" brings in Sufjan Stevens and his banjo plucking and the song shifts into a major key, sounding hopeful. Yet the lyrics of the chorus are somewhat bereft of resolve. In the first chorus, the "clouds of hope fall [on the subject] now." In the second chorus "love fall[s] on [the subject] now. Is the speaker of the song Jesus or God and the "little flowers" that the subject has "sown show people that I am love"? Perhaps "Little Flowers" is a metaphor for the Christian faith or the personal relationship with Jesus that the Sufjan school of folk doesn't shy away from. And yet, in this simple song, I wonder if the message is that simple. I picture an old church lady who loves God so much as she spends time in her garden growing beautiful flowers, decorating her lawn with colored flags, all symbolizing a spiritual love. It reminds me of a time when I worked in landscaping for these church ladies who seemed to have a deep devotion to God. Working early in the morning before the sun got too hot, I too felt a deep love of God, humming hymns and saying silent prayers as I weeded the garden. I too pictured God smiling down on me. It's a memory of a time when my world made sense with faith as long as I overlooked my sexuality, and now as I think back fondly on that return to a semi-rural Garden of Eden morning, I wonder if my soul was on to a truth that I get from cultivating little flowers before the heat of the day?


 



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