During the year I spent in Britain in the late eighties, my family and I seemed to take our homesickness out on the culture at large. We'd get irritated by constant references to America and, by extension, no one knowing anything about Canada. We naively assumed that our far deeper connection to the old Empire would have endeared us to the locals but it meant nothing to them. Thus, we'd cling to even the most modest of acknowledgments. (Except, of course, when it came to the Ben Johnson steroid scandal at the Seoul Olympics) The slightest mention of our homeland on TV would get us excited. If we happened to drive by a large hotel we'd be sure to check to see if a Canadian flag was flying alongside the American, Australian, French and German standards — and we'd all be indignant when it wasn't in its rightful place (which it never was).
It was a pleasant surprise, then, when "I Beg Your Pardon" by Toronto's Kon Kan started climbing the UK Top 40.in the spring of 1989. It mattered little that they sounded like the most British synth-pop group imaginable (Graeme Kay in Smash Hits was unimpressed by their unoriginal sound, describing them as a "cross between New Order and Depeche Mode"): they were from Canada and so were we and that was all that mattered! While my hope that "I Beg Your Pardon" might go all the way to the top was wishful thinking, its eventual peak at number five was an achievement nonetheless.
The clearly sampled bit — you know, as opposed to a good deal of the rest of the song whose many sampled bits weren't quite as easy to spot — was from "Rose Garden", a song that I had long assumed to be by fellow Canadian k.d. lang. (Actually, I wasn't entirely wrong on that one because the performance artist turned torch singer did record it a couple years prior to Kon Kan's use of it) I had no idea who Lynn Anderson was and it wasn't as if the success of "I Beg Your Pardon" brought her back into the public eye. In fact, "project" leader Barry Harris didn't go out of his way to acknowledge her, claiming at the time to have written it "in a Lisbon subway". It was only later that he admitted that he wanted to do with "Rose Garden" what the Pet Shop Boys had done with the Elvis Presley/Willie Nelson standard "Always on My Mind": take a popular country anthem and transform it into a slice of glorious pop. (He failed to do so but writing a whole new pop song around another is not just something any old fart can do so we'll let it slide)
Lynn Anderson had been a country star since the mid-sixties with a handful of hits on the American and Canadian country charts to her credit, including the number one smash "Big Girls Don't Cry", which had nothing to do with The Four Seasons song of the same name. She also began to make a name for herself on The Lawrence Welk Show, which, much to my surprise, wasn't the name of a mind-numbingly boring political panel show on American public broadcasting. (I'm sorry but the name Lawrence Welk says 'candid, off-the-cuff, hard hitting analysis', not 'all-around family entertainer') Like Welk, Anderson hailed from North Dakota but this meant she was an outsider when it came to being accepted by Nashville's country establishment. Rather than looking to the emerging Bakersfield sound like Buck Owens and Merle Haggard (a scene that frankly could've used a female lead singer) or leaning towards mainstream pop, she doubled down on her pursuit of being accepted by Music City. (Considering the lengthy career she subsequently enjoyed and the fact that she died in Nashville, it would seem she succeeded) And in doing so she had her one and only pop hit.
"Rose Garden" was written in 1967 by Joe South who also took a stab at recording it. There's nothing really wrong with his original but it does sound like he had Elvis Presley in mind while singing it. For whatever reason the King never tried it out himself but star Billy Joe Royal did put out a version of his own. Again, his take on it is all right though a little too jokey and cornball for my taste. Playing up the comedy aspect of "Rose Garden" is a legitimate choice and it is one that Anderson makes herself albeit with more subtlety. Her reading is not unlike a serious dramatic actor playing a comedy role as straight as possible who then still gets the required laughs. It helps as well that it's delivered from a female perspective: Anderson lends a touch of wisdom that simply isn't there in either the South or Royal versions.
Which brings us back round to "I Beg Your Pardon": it's almost a duet. Yeah, I know that Anderson's sample ("Smile for a while and let's be jolly...") is only brief but her part provides an effective counterpoint to singer Kevin Wynne's angst, a suggestion to "Cheer Up!" that doesn't come across as patronizing. The country singer would reflect on the huge success of "Rose Garden" and comment that it fitted the times when the United States was divided and coming out of the Vietnam years and needed some light relief. There's probably something to this and it works just as well in a spot of synth doom and gloom. So, props to Lynn Anderson: she took an ordinary country-pop song and made everyone take notice and then her vocal was used on a modern synth-pop hit and did the same the thing. Ignore all her country hits and she could even qualify to be a double one-hit wonder.
