Jim Stafford – Wildwood Weed, is a 1974 hit song written by Don Bowman and recorded by Jim Stafford. It was the fourth of four U.S. Top 40 singles from his eponymous debut album. Musically, the song takes its inspiration from The Carter Family’s instrumental recording “Wildwood Flower”. The lyrics in the verses are spoken, rather than sung.
Jim Stafford – Wildwood Weed, reached number seven on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, number five on Cash Box and number three on the Canadian pop singles chart. It was a crossover hit onto the Adult Contemporary charts of both nations (reaching number two in Canada), as well as the U.S. Country chart.
Jim Stafford – Wildwood Weed
From the album Jim Stafford
B-side “The Last Chant”
Released July 1974
Length 2:38
Label MGM Records
Songwriter(s) Don Bowman
Producer(s) P. Gernhard and Roland Kent LaVoie
Jim Stafford – Wildwood Weed Lyrics
The name of this song is the Wildwood Flower
Now the Wildwood Flower is an old country classic
It’s gained a whole new popularity
The song isn’t any more popular
But the flower is doin’ real good
The wildwood flower grew wild on the farm
And we never knowed what it was called
Some said it was a flower and some said it was a weed
I didn’t give it much thought
One day I was out there talking to my brother
And I reached down for a weed to chew on
Things got fuzzy and things got blurry
And then everything was gone!
Didn’t know what happened
But I knew it beat the hell out of sniffin’ burlap
I come to and my brother was there
And he said, “What’s wrong with your eyes?”
I said, “I don’t know, I was chewing on a weed”
He said, “Let me give it a try”
We spent the rest of that day and most of that night
Trying to find my brother, Bill
Caught up with him, ’bout six o’clock the next morning
Naked, singing on the wind mill!
He said he flew up there
I had to fly up there and bring him down
He was about half crazy
The very next day we picked a bunch of them weeds
And put ’em in the sun to dry
Then we mashed ’em up and chopped ’em up
And put ’em in the corncob pipe
Smokin’ that wildwood flower got to be a habit
We didn’t see no harm
We thought it was kind of handy
Take a trip and never leave the farm!
Big ‘ole puff of that wildwood weed next thing you know
You’re just wand’ring ’round behind the little animals
All good things gotta come to an end
And it’s the same with the wildwood weed
One day this feller from Washington came by
And he spied it and turned white as a sheet
Then they dug and they burned
And they burned and they dug
And they killed all our cute little weeds
Then they drove away
We just smiled and waved
Sittin’ there on that sack of seeds!
“Y’all come back now, ya hear?”
Like that song, called a radio show and asked them to play
it and right behind it old hippy thought that be a nice set.