Have you heard Lemon Tree by Fools Garden before? It has a nice, cheerful melody that grabs you. Contrary to the melody, the lyrics are a bit sad and talk about a lemon tree.
Yesterday you told me ‘bout the blue blue sky
And all that I can see is just a yellow lemon-tree
So what do these words say?
There are many theories about the lyrics. The first one is about the girlfriend of Peter Freudenthaler, the lead singer of the band, who had an accident.
According to this story, the musician had a French lover who died after crashing her car into a tree. The tree she hit was a lemon tree and the song Lemon Tree was written because of this sad event. The song describes the depression after this great loss.
In the lyrics of the song he talks about being very lonely, he is waiting for someone, loneliness is not good and he is very tired. In that sense, these lyrics are very fitting when you think about this story.
According to another theory, the lemon tree and the blue sky in the song are metaphors. While the blue sky symbolizes hope and happiness, the lemon tree represents sadness, pain and feeling sad. Because a lemon tree gives lemons and lemons are sour! When life gives you lemons, sometimes you don't have the strength to make lemonade.
When it says " Yesterday you told me 'bout the blue, blue sky" in the song, it is thought that his lover gave him hope, talked about beautiful things, but now that they are no longer together, all he can see is the lemon tree, that is, sadness.
It is even said that the artist had agreed to meet his girlfriend, but she didn't show up. The lyrics "I'm wastin' my time" and "I'm waitin' for you" in the song were for this reason.
Others say that this is all gossip and that this song is just a song about depression. The artist may be describing his depression with the lemon trees that prevent him from seeing the sky after the peacefulness of the blue sky.
But as I said, these are just theories, legends. It is very possible that the listeners made it up to make sense of the song.
Fact or myth? Hotel California
Many stories can be told about songs. The first one that comes to mind is probably Hotel California by Eagles.
Briefly, the story tells that our male protagonist goes to Hotel California, meets a girl there and they fall in love. They spend the whole summer together. When it is time to leave, they make a promise to each other that if they still love each other they will come back next year.
After a year, our hero excitedly makes his way to the Hotel California and when he arrives, he is greeted by black smoke. The hotel has caught fire and his beloved one has lost her life in the fire.
This story has been told so many times that everyone thought it was true. But it was not.
Don Felder, the author of the song, said in a recent interview that he wrote Hotel California under the influence of drugs during their tour and that the story told was not true.
But even if it's not true, it's obvious that such stories make the songs more interesting and touch people more.
We are not exactly sure which story is true for the song Lemon Tree. There's nothing definite about it, but that doesn't change the fact that it's an enjoyable and pleasant song.
What do you think is the true story behind the song Lemon Tree?
Rosie Lou ~~
Gülpembe Akdi
Yücel Cultural Foundation
Voluntary Author
translated by Ekremcan Bakır
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