Lemon Tree by George Possley

"Lemon Tree" is a folk song written by Will Holt in the 1960s. The tune is based on the Brazilian folk song Meu limão, meu limoeiro, arranged by José Carlos Burle in 1937 and made popular by Brazilian singer Wilson Simonal.[1] The song compares love to a lemon tree: "Lemon tree very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet, but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat."

The song has been recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary, Chad & Jeremy, The Kingston Trio, The Seekers, Bob Marley and The Wailers, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Sandie Shaw, and Roger Whittaker. In 1965, Trini Lopez recorded the most successful version of the song which hit number twenty on the Hot 100 and number two on the Hot Adult Contemporary chart [2].

In the 1960s, the tune was used in television advertisements for "Lemon Pledge", an aerosol furniture polish.

The song was referenced in the Seinfeld episode "The Phone Message", and in Michael Tolliver Lives by Armistead Maupin. It was performed on an episode of F Troop in which the main characters anachronistically form a rock band. It figures prominently in the Eran Riklis film, Lemon Tree (Etz Limon). The song was also referenced in Tim O'Brien's book The Things They Carried; when a fellow soldier named Curt Lemon steps on a booby trap and gets blown into a tree, it is the unsavory job of the protagonist and a squad mate to bring the pieces down. The main character is mildly shocked when his squad mate starts softly singing "Lemon Tree". The song provides the title and epigraph of Andrea Levy's 1999 novel, Fruit of the Lemon. - Wikipedia
SOTD for Tuesday, October 30, 2012

D A D D A D
When I was just a lad of ten, my father said to me,
D A G A D
"Come here and take a lesson from the lovely lemon tree.
G D C G D G
Don't put your faith in love my boy," my father said to me.
G D C D C D G
"I fear you'll find that love is like the lovely lemon tree."

:
A7 D G D G D G A
Lemon tree, very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet,
A A D
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.
D G D G D G A
Lemon tree, very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet,
G A G A7 D
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.

D A D D A D
One day beneath the lemon tree my love and I did lie.
D A G A G A D
A girl so sweet that when she smiled the stars rose in the sky.
G D C G G D G
We passed that summer lost in love beneath the lemon tree.
G D C D C D G
The music of her laughter hid my father's words from me.



D A D D A D
One day she left without a word, she took away the sun.
D A G A G A D
And in the dark she left behind, I knew what she had done.
G D G G D G
She left me for another, it's a common tale but true.
G D C D C D G
A sadder man but wiser now, I sing these words to you.

Song

Lemon Tree

Performed by

George Possley

Originally by

Will Holt & Dolly Jonah

Video title

899 - Lemon Tree - acoustic cover of Kingston Trio by George Possley

Views

5380

Likes

24