Song Lyric Sunday – Bubblegum Pop

This week’s music prompt for Song Lyric Sunday is Bubblegum Pop which is very similar to last week’s Sunshine Pop. Both genres go back to the late 60s so I have come up with Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes by Edison Lighthouse. An English pop band, formed in London in 1969. The band was best known for this 1970 hit recorded in late 1969. It’s definitely Bubblegum!

The Song

The British producers Tony Macaulay and Barry Mason wrote this song with Sylvan Mason, who was Barry’s wife at the time. (Sylvan is often uncredited, but her divorce agreement provides hard evidence that she co-wrote this song and the Tom Jones hit “Delilah.”) The song is about a free spirit named Rosemary who leaves the singer besotted.

Many have claimed to be the actual Rosemary the song is about, but Sylvan Mason says that like Delilah, no such person exists. She told Songfacts: “Tony [Macaulay] came over with a melody and rough idea for a song, which title originally was ‘It’s My Heart You’ll Be Breaking Apart,’ but he said he wanted to put a girl’s name in the title because that’s what sold records in those days. The girl’s name Rosemary fitted with the title so we started the song from scratch merely using the name Rosemary”

Macaulay and Barry Mason recorded the song using session musicians. When it became a hit, they put together a band from members of the group Greefield Hammer in order to perform it live. McCaulay eventually put together another group using the Edison Lighthouse name.

A session singer named Tony Burrows sang lead. He was the voice of several studio groups, including White Plains, The Pipkins, and Brotherhood Of Man, First Class (“Beach Baby”) and the Flowerpot Men (“Let’s Go To San Francisco”). He famously appeared on one UK TV show three times in one night when three different groups (all fronted by him) were due to perform their current chart hits. He said, “I just kept changing hats.”

Why is the love growing? That’s a play on the name Rosemary, which is an herb.

Courtesy of Songfacts

The Lyrics

She ain't got no money
Her clothes are kinda funny
Her hair is kinda wild and free
Oh, but Love grows where my Rosemary goes
And nobody knows like me

She talks kinda lazy
And people say she she's crazy
And her life's a mystery
Oh, but Love grows where my Rosemary goes
And nobody knows like me

There's something about her hand holding mine
It's a feeling that's fine
And I just gotta say
She's really got a magical spell
And it's working so well
That I can't get away

I'm a lucky fella
And I've just got to tell her
That I love her endlessly
Because Love grows where my Rosemary goes
And nobody knows like me

There's something about her hand holding mine
It's a feeling that's fine
And I just gotta say
She's really got a magical spell
And it's working so well
That I can't get away

I'm a lucky fella
And I've just got to tell her
That I love her endlessly
Because Love grows where my Rosemary goes
And nobody knows like me

Fadeout:
It keeps growing every place she's been
And nobody knows like me

If you've met her, you'll never forget her
And nobody knows like me

La la la- believe it when you've seen it
Nobody knows like me

Writer/s: Roger Frederick Cook, Roger John Reginald Greenaway 
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind