Tuesday 18 March 2014

Peter, Paul and Mary - Lemon Tree

I was recently riding quite the Peter, Paul and Mary kick.  And by quite the kick, I mean that I downloaded as much as I could and was listening to all of their stuff non-stop for a few days in a row.  I'm better now, but still not quite over it.  You just can't listen to Peter, Paul and Mary and not be happy.  Everything is perfect.  This is now another instance of where I could have picked a more well-known song, but instead pick something a little more obscure.  Well, I'm not really sure how obscure "Lemon Tree" is, but I never heard it beforehand, and now I'm obsessed.

Originally recorded by Will Holt, it was rerecorded by the trio in their 1962 self-titled album (which my mom found at Value Village in February...original vinyl...and we listened to it for a few days).  They sweetly compare love to a lemon tree, which is very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet, but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.  Probably not very optimistic about love, but everything about "Lemon Tree" is just lovely simplicity.  This is the way that people should still be doing folk.  And when they all sing together on the chorus?  Magic.  Everything they do is magic, but "Lemon Tree" has just a little more than average.

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