Music by Claudia Doesn’t Like It and Transfer Point
Words by Mark Sanderson

I lay down in flower gardens
Pulling weeds and stinging bees
I try to make things look just right
But I just can’t seem to run away

I’ve got a green thumb
I’ve got a kingdom
It may sound kind of dumb
But I’ve got a green thumb

Walk around the Brussels sprouts
Planting seeds and raking leaves
Taste the flavor in my mouth
I just don’t know what to say

I’ve got a green thumb
I’ve got a kingdom
It may sound kind of dumb
But I’ve got a green thumb

Gather raindrops in my mouth
Trimming trees and doing deeds
The sunlight’s excavating
I just watch without a doubt

I’ve got a green thumb
I’ve got a kingdom
It may sound kind of dumb
But I’ve got a green thumb

I’ve got a green thumb
I’ve got freedom
It may sound kind of dumb
But I’ve got a green thumb

Alan Sanderson: vocals, guitars, bass, ukulele, drums, keys
Tom Sanderson: keys, drums

Alan’s Notes

The year was 1996. I was living the dream as the 17-year old front man for a garage band that was making a splash in the local music scene of St. George, Utah. (It was a pretty small town back then.) We were playing gigs around town, selling T-shirts and homemade cassette tapes, and getting attention from lots of girls. (The leprechaun on the cover image was a gift from Tina Argyle. She said it reminded her of me.)

Green Thumb was a new song that year. Mark handed me the lyrics one day, and the music just fell into place. We first played it at Skim Fest on the shores of the Virgin River in April. The sound was inspired by early R.E.M. and other post-punk bands we listened to a lot back then. It was energetic and raw, but with a clean tone on the guitar so it didn’t sound too heavy. The song quickly became a signature piece in our set.

Mark and I moved to Salt Lake City that summer, and leaving our band behind was one of the great sadnesses of my young life. I tried to record this song with Jake Bracken for the 2001: A Claudyssey album, but I couldn’t nail the drum part. This was the only Claudia Doesn’t Like It song I cared about that I didn’t get a decent recording of.

In 2003 I made an instrumental arrangement of Green Thumb. Mark was doing an internship at the local PBS affiliate station and needed a background track for a commercial he was making. This version added a glockenspiel melody that I liked a lot. My kids are most familiar with this arrangement.

I don’t remember why I decided to finally record this song nearly 30 years after its debut, but I am pleased with how it turned out. It is a pretty good fusion of the 1996 and 2003 arrangements, with a totally new vibe for the 3rd verse. Tom pointed the way to that new vibe, and I really like it.

At one gig in the spring of 1996 we played an extended intro to this song, which was inspired by the beginning of Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart. Echoes of that idea worked its way into the current arrangement, but in later choruses instead of the intro.

I played my first electric guitar on this new recording, which is a 1980’s Yamaha SC300T made in Taiwan. My Mom bought it at a pawn shop for my 15th birthday, and it is one of the best birthday presents I have ever received. It’s hard to imagine a better guitar to learn on. It is a quirky instrument, with a neck that is a little narrower than a typical Stratocaster clone and pickups that have a different height for each string. The pickup height is actually configured for a round-wound G string, which I never use, so this makes that string a bit louder than the others. Green Thumb just doesn’t sound the same when I play it on a different guitar.

My old Fender Bassman 60 has glitchy electronics, so I didn’t use it on this recording. But I did use my old Crate GX-30M for the bass, outputting to the Fender speaker cabinet. I used the Fender tube amp for the guitar and ukulele, and I also used the MOD Dwarf on the guitar to get the chorus effect.

I appreciate Tom’s input and contributions to this song, which he downplays in his typical humble fashion. It is a better recording because of his input at every stage of the process, and I love what he did with the third verse.

Tom’s Notes

I have liked “Green Thumb” as a song for almost 30 years now. My introduction to the song was via Alan who mailed his Claudia Doesn’t Like It cassette tape compilation to me in 1996 while I was trying to serve as a missionary in Bismarck, ND. It has the pace and frenetic energy of punk rock music but lyrics, melody and vocal that are more in line with Alternative Rock or Folk Rock. It definitely is a song that reminds me of teenage youth.

I had considerable difficulty contributing some useful parts but after trial and error did add electric piano, organ and percussion. There was a 90’s alternative song whose title and artist escapes me that I roughly patterned the Wurlitzer introduction to the second verse. The half-time feel of the third verse was not patterned after any artist in particular but it vaguely reminds me of part of “LA Woman” by the Doors.

Info and Stats

• Production Dates: February — May 2025
• Equipment
  • Interfaces: Behringer Xenyx 1204USB, Behringer Ultra-DI DI400P, MOD Dwarf Founders Edition
  • Guitars: Yamaha SC300T, Takamine G-330, Ibanez ASB140 bass, Ibanez UICT10-BK electric tenor ukulele
  • Amplifiers and Speakers: Fender Dual showman, Crate GX-30M, Fender 12×2 cabinet
  • Synths: Roland FA-06
  • Microphones: Rode NT1, Shure SM-57
• Software
  • Linux Mint 20.2
  • Ardour 8.10.0
  • Dragonfly Reverb: Room, Hall, Plate
  • x42-plugins: parametric equalizer, dynamic compressor, digital peak limiter, Red Zeppelin Drumkit, general midi synth
  • Calf Studio Gear: vintage delay, flanger, bass enhancer, multi-spread
• Tracks and Busses: 32
  • Guitars, bass, ukulele: 4
  • Synths: 3
  • Drums: 10
  • Vocal: 15