"Grass" is sometimes mistaken to be about cannabis, but was actually written about Coate Water, a parkland in Swindon. Moulding composed it on an open E-tuned guitar and found its harmonic changes by playing the chord shapes of Thunderclap Newman's "Something in the Air" (1969). The mixing of violin and guitar was an idea lifted from John Lennon's "How Do You Sleep?" (1971). Rundgren added a tiple to the blend. Moulding originally sang the song with a deeper voice. He said Rundgren voiced concern that the effect was too close to "a molester", and so Moulding "did the Bowie thing and added an octave above it". The track bookends "Summer's Cauldron" with a reprise of its "insect chorus".