Artist: Ian Roland
Album: The Wood Wide Web
Release Date: Fri 24th February 2023

During the first lockdown, due to the COVID 19 pandemic in 2020, my children and I decided to plant an area of wildflowers in our garden. Science was linking the pandemic with the years of exploitation and destruction of the natural world* and to try to combat our sense of the overwhelming helplessness of this situation we planted wildflowers and over the coming months watched the bees and butterflies visit.

* “The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, caused by zoonotic SARS-CoV-2, has important links to biodiversity loss and ecosystem health” https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00258-8/fulltext#seccestitle230


WILDFLOWERS		
	                              I
VERSE 1
SO CLOSE TO TOUCHING YOU
LOST IN THE AIR, THE PUSH AND PULL
DISTANCE BROUGHT US TOGETHER.
SO CLOSE TO HOLDING YOU
SKY’S SUCH A DEEP, DEEP BLUE
OUR LIVES CHANGED FOREVER.
TRUTH IS

CHORUS
WILDFLOWERS TO REMEMBER THE DAY
WILDFLOWERS TO SIMPLY PRAY
WILDFLOWERS STOPPED US FALLING APART

VERSE 2
APART WE ARE LIVING THROUGH
CAN WE SURVIVE THIS INVISIBLE?
AS THE COLD LIGHT OF DAY SHINES DOWN.
IN THE SOIL WE PLANTED OUR FAITH
WILDFLOWERS COULD GROW IN THIS SPACE
AS THE SEEDS FELL FROM OUR HANDS TO THE GROUND.

CHORUS

MID 8 
WE THREW THE CORNFLOWERS, TANSY AND QUAKING-GRASS
FREELY AROUND.
AMONGST THE SWEET VERNAL GRASS 
WE MIXED PURPLE LOOSE STRIFE AND THYME.
WHITE CLOVER, SELF HEAL AND YARROW
LINING THE PATH.
THEY SPRUNG FROM THE GROUND,
BRINGING MEMORIES OF US.

CHORUS

09. Wildflowers - Ian Roland

Website : http://ianroland.com/
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/ianrolandmusic
Facebook Band Page https://www.facebook.com/ianrolandband
Twitter https://twitter.com/ianrolandmusic
Amazing Tunes: http://ianroland.amazingtunes.com/

Baylen Leonard - Amazing Radio
"Ian Roland's songs have a way of sneaking into your head and heart after just one listen. I find myself singing them long after hearing them. His songwriting somehow has the magical ability to transport me back to the front porch of my youth. They manage to sound both modern and like something from times gone by. Excellent." Baylen Leonard - Amazing Radio, http://amazingradio.com/?show=thefrontporch

Phil Widdows - FolkCast
"Ian Roland is a gifted songwriter and performer with an individual and refreshingly different approach to his art, producing songs that really are well worth getting to know." - Phil Widdows, folkcast.co.uk