I picked a rose this morning
And it was so fresh, it looked like it was crying
I thought how sad to be so beautiful
Only to wither and die
Like Papa’s Roses soft and pale
Like petals thrown in the dirt
Only silence is spoken here
All that grows here is hurt
And Papa’s Roses
Papa wasn’t really a hardened man
He could be tender at times
I remember, it was like it holiday
When he was gentle and kind
He gave those roses his heart and soul
I wish he’d saved some for me
It would’ve been such a simple thing,
For me to be, like Papa’s Roses
Like Papa’s Roses soft and pale
Like petals thrown in the dirt
Only silence is spoken here
All that grows here is hurt
And Papa’s Roses
Voices that whisper soft and low
Forever buried inside
Haunted by images dark and cold
Forever burned in your mind
But I dreamed I could fly away
Like an angel I’d fly
To the places where I could forget
Forget that I was like Papa’s Roses
Like Papa’s Roses soft and pale
Like petals thrown in the dirt
Only silence is spoken here
All that grows here is hurt
And Papa’s Roses
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“It’s a reference to “Geek Love” – it’s a novel by Katherine Dunn. The book was the inspiration for the song. It’s an interesting book, it’s about carnival folk. Freak shows and the people that are in them – it’s a strange little book. Song content comes from a lot of different sources, you just look at something and it touches you, it triggers something you want to write about.”
—Pat Benatar, from the Relentless Live Interview
From Katherine Dunn’s “Geek Love”
“It was in Oregon, up in Portland, which they call the Rose City, though I never got in gear to do anything about it until a year or so later when we were stuck in Fort Lauderdale.”
He had been restless one day, troubled by business boondoggles. He drove up into a park on a hillside and got out for a walk. “You could see for miles from up there. And there was a big rose garden with arbors and trellises and fountains. The paths were brick and wound in and out.” He sat on a step leading from one terrace to another and stared listlessly at the experimental roses. “It was a test garden, and the colors were…designed. Striped and layered. One color inside the petal and another color outside.”
“I was mad at Maribelle. She was a pinhead who’d been with your mother and me for a long while. She was trying to hold me up for a raise I couldn’t afford.”
The roses started him thinking, how the oddity of them was beautiful and how that oddity was contrived to give them value. “It just struck me-clear and complete all at once-no long figuring about it.” He realized that children could be designed. “And I thought to myself, now that would be a rose garden worthy of a man’s interest!”
“We children would smile and hug him and he would grin around at us and the twins for a pot of cocoa from the drink wagon and me for a bag of popcorn because the red-haired girls would just throw it out when they finished closing the concession anyway. And we would all be cozy in the warm booth of the van, eating popcorn and drinking cocoa and feeling like Papa’s roses.”
From the album(s): Innamorata
Author(s): Benatar, Giraldo
Time: 4:20