“Trees And Flowers” by Strawberry Switchblade

"Trees and Flowers" was Strawberry Switchblade's debut single, and it's a curveball from a Scottish band whose usual turf was new wave indie pop: a reflective ballad with a folk-pop lilt, all gentle melody and soft harmonies. The credit reads Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall, like all their songs, but Bryson wrote this one alone.

The sweetness is a decoy. The song is about Bryson's agoraphobia, which hit her so hard as a teenager that she lost a year of school, and the words recoil from the whole outside world, nature and city alike. Two BBC Radio 1 sessions the band cut in October 1982 caught the ears of David Balfe and Bill Drummond, who got in touch and became their managers, and a demo of the song, issued later, has become one of their best-loved tracks.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.