“Garden Grove” is a song by the Long Beach rock band Sublime, and it appeared on their self-titled third and final album, Sublime, which was released in 1996

Mere weeks after the band finished recording this album, and only a week after getting married, lead singer Bradley Nowell died of a heroin overdose while on tour in San Francisco, bringing with it the end of Sublime. The album was released 2 months after his death, and it makes a lot of the album’s lyrics that much more fucked up because there is no shortage of drug talk

For the most part, Sublime is a band that is usually associated with summer and chilling, but this is one of their darker songs. Pretty fitting that it came on today as my Shuffle Song of the Day, seeing as we are currently descending into the coldness of late fall and winter

Building off of that last paragraph, I couldn’t help but notice the dichotomy between the song and the music video (which was made last year). The YouTube description explains this though, saying, “In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of Sublime’s eponymous album, this video is a love letter to the Long Beach lifestyle they embraced featuring the faces and places of LBC that has always been deep rooted in their music”

The important lesson to learned from this song, Bradley’s death, and the deaths of plenty other musicians, family members, and friends over the years is to never touch heroin. Pretty much every other drug is okay in my book, but heroin can fuck right off

LYRICS

We took this trip to Garden Grove
It smelled like Lou-dog inside the van, oh yeah
This ain’t no funky reggae party, $5 at the door
It gets so real sometimes, who wrote my rhyme
I got the microwave, got the VCR
I got the deuce-deuce in the trunk of my car, oh yeah

If you only knew all the love that I found
It’s hard to keep my soul on the ground
You’re a fool, don’t fuck around with my dog
All that I can see I steal, I fill up my garage

Cause in my mind
Music from Jamaica, all the love that I found
Pull over there’s a reason why my soul’s unsound

It’s you
It’s that shit stuck under my shoe
It’s that smell inside the van
It’s my bed sheet covered with sand
Sitting through a shitty band
Getting dog shit on my hands
Getting hassled by the man

Waking up to an alarm
Sticking needles in your arm
Picking up trash on a freeway
Feeling depressed everyday
Leaving without making a sound
Picking my dog up at the pound
Living in a tweaker pad
Getting yelled at by my dad

Saying I’m happy when I’m not
Finding roaches in the pot
All these things I do
They’re waiting for you