Give Me Flowers While I'm Living

Give Me Flowers While I'm Living is a Smoky Mountains song Perry Smith sings on the Estrellita, turning a fleeting interlude off the coast of Acapulco into a reflection on recognition in life rather than praise after death. Otto asks to hear it again; the song’s appeal for flowers while one is still living gains force from the temporary, companionable world around the performance and its imminent end.

Performance Aboard the Estrellita

The scene opens beneath a blazing sun, with the Estrellita anchored in a mild sea. Four people are aboard: Dick, Perry Smith, a young Mexican, and Otto, a wealthy middle-aged German. Strumming his guitar, Perry Smith sings in a husky, sweet voice. Otto’s request, “Please. Again,” makes the song a repeated performance rather than incidental background music.

The Song’s Plea

The lyrics contrast the harsh judgments people make of the living with the lilies placed in a coffin after death, then ask, “Won’t you give me flowers while I’m living …” The contrast is the song’s central thought: affection or recognition offered posthumously cannot take the place of what might have been given in life. The song itself is identified as a Smoky Mountains song; the passage does not name a composer or provide further information about its origin.

A Brief Season of Ease

The performance belongs to a short-lived stretch of ease in Mexico. After a week in Mexico City, Perry Smith and Dick drove south through Cuernavaca, Taxco, and Acapulco, where Dick met Otto and the young Mexican known as the Cowboy. The Cowboy found the drifters a room and helped Perry Smith with Spanish. Otto paid for meals and drinks, and each day he hired the fishing boat for the four friends to go trolling along the coast.

On those outings, the Cowboy skippered, Otto sketched and fished, and Perry Smith baited hooks, daydreamed, sang, and sometimes fished. Dick, by contrast, complained about the motion and lay listlessly in the sun. Perry Smith called this life what it ought to be, but knew the arrangement could not last: Otto was returning to Germany the next day, and Dick insisted that they drive back to Mexico City because their money was running out. Against that approaching departure, the song’s request for flowers while living resonates as part of a scene in which pleasure is real but brief.