Black Plant
With a length of only three minutes and 59 seconds,
“Black Plant” gains the award of the longest song on
“The Age of the Understatement”.
“Black Plant” is a story about a relationship told
from the perspective of both the boyfriend and the
girlfriend. The first verse is about a girl who has
recently cheated on her boyfriend. She is sorry for
what she has done, and she tries to apologize by
writing him numerous letters that attempt to explain
herself. Although she wants to, she can’t find the
strength to give the letters to him, and she knows
that they will most likely do no good anyway because
he is too upset with her. The second verse is about
the boyfriend in the relationship. He is fed up with
the way that things have gone, and he is altogether
unsatisfied with the situation. Temptation starts to
show its ugly face, and he begins to stray. He
eventually ends up cheating on his girlfriend with
another girl. Neither one of them can apologize for
what they have done because they know the other one
will not understand where they are coming from. This
is why the girl never ended up sending the love
letters; she knew that it would not have made the
boyfriend feel any better about their situation.
Both of them know that they had control over the
choice they made to cheat, and that there is no
possible way to justify their decision. Therefore,
apologizing after cheating would be worthless
because they both had control over what they decided
to do. Even though they understand this, they decide
to apologize to each other anyway in hopes that this
will mend their relationship. So they wait, each of
them feeling guilty, trying to justify both their
choice to mend their relationship and to cheat in
the first place. They reflect on the situation while
in a broken state of mind, deciding what their next
step should be. The song is entitled “Black Plant”
because Turner and Kane have used the term as a
metaphor for the boy and girl’s relationship in
their story. The relationship is withering due to a
lack of nourishment and will continue to fade until
something is done to reverse this action.
The song begins with the sound of wind chimes.
Turner and Kane then begin to resonate a chorus of
oh’s, such as something that could be found within
any number of Bee Gees songs. Apart from a small
amount of lines, the song is sung in unison by both
Turner and Kane. The playing of brass instruments
can be heard during each verse and also towards the
end of the song. The lyrics fade out and a sound
similar to the scratching of the instruments’ bows
is all that can be heard. The sound then turns into
the slow-playing resonance of the orchestra and ends
after roughly 25 seconds.
