Richard Rudolph recalled how Minnie and Charles Stepney’s encouragement resulted in this song becoming the first of a decades-long career in songwriting:

I was really a novice, and I wrote “Come to my Garden” on a guitar. In those days, we were very excited because we had cassette players, and we could push two buttons and record quickly. [laughs]

You could overdub anything. It was just a guitar and vocal. And unfortunately, it was my vocals, which were brutal and my guitar playing was not that great, either. I just learned to play the guitar, so I could write songs. I was not a schooled musician. So, Charles and I were diametrically opposed in that way, but we became so close. Minnie, unbeknownst to me, took this cassette that had this little song on it. She played it for Charles, and Charles came to me and asked, “You wrote the song?”

I was embarrassed that he heard it. He asked, “Did you write the lyrics, too?” I answered, “Yes.” He asked, “Can you write lyrics for other people’s music?” I said, “I can write lyrics to anything.” Never having done it, of course, but just thinking that I could do it. He said, “I’ll give you some stuff, and we’ll see what you can do.”