Reference to:
The Hanging Garden
A novel by David Wagoner
1982
Also referenced in 'Shake Dog Shake'
The Hanging Garden, the novel
The Hanging Garden - very clearly a reference to
The Hanging Garden by David Wagoner 1980
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I would urge fans to buy this out of print book from Abe Books before reading this section. The book is as frightening as the song. It is by the distinguished poet David Wagoner. Lord knows how he moved on to such horror.
A man links up with a dog breeder and they move to his newly purchased house. He meets gothic horror Deliverance-like smalltown, backwoods neighbours.
He finds the Hanging Garden where sick dogs from the local pound are tortured and hanged... along with other beings. The animals scream and die. Don't read it late at night.
P40 “History is constantly being made anew”
P54 the animals cry
What was he doing?
Speaking grudgingly, Dorff said, “Hurting it.”
..”Tell the truth, it didn’t make our too good.”
“Did he kill it?”
“Not whiles he was there...”
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P92
“When he came up behind her, she didn’t turn to look at him.. And then he noticed the smell. But he didn’t pay attention to it long, because there were too many other things to notice: such as the hanging animals.
Around the...clearing... the carcasses of a number of small animals had been strung up on tree branches... Two dogs... had been hung (maybe even hanged..) by short pieces of... clothesline.”
P94
“...this hanging garden without a Babylon.”
P238
In the dream he was hanging outdoors in bad weather...”
Then the dream changed and he was in a cage
P140
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wide, staring. awake, but the darkness didn't go away and neither did the cage.
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It wasn't just ordinary darkness, not the outdoor variety full of half recognised shapes and textures, with a sense of time and location, but utter darkness, so thick and rich he could feel the weight of it in his hands.
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Wp142
His mouth tasted like iron which could have been blood yet there was an underlayer of bitterness in it toons he didn’t have any saliva to spit with, and the idea of coughing made him afraid: his throat felt broken inside.
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The Hanging Garden, the song
Creatures kissing in the rain
Shapeless in the dark again
In the hanging garden
please don't speak
In the hanging garden no one sleeps
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Catching haloes on the moon
Gives my hands the shapes of angels
In the heat of the night the animals scream
In the heat of the night walking into a dream
Fall fall fall fall Into the walls
Jump jump out of time
Fall fall fall fall Out of the sky
Cover my face as the animals cry
In the hanging garden
Creatures kissing in the rain
Shapeless in the dark again
In the hanging garden change the past
In the hanging garden wearing furs and masks
Fall fall fall fall Into the walls
Jump jump out of time
Fall fall fall fall Out of the sky
Cover my face as the animals die
In the hanging garden In the hanging garden
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Songwriters: Laurence Andrew Tolhurst / Robert James Smith / Simon Gallup The Hanging Garden lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group