Happy Spring, Well Done!

John Spillane, on his album "Will We Be Brilliant Or What?" (answer : No), has a track called "The dance of the cherry trees". I heard it on the radio this morning and it was the most preposterous song I've heard for a very long time indeed.

I've helpfully annotated the lyrics below which will, I hope, clarify some of the more troublesome aspects in play.

Let me tell you 'bout the cherry trees

> Well...

Every April in our town

They put on the most outrageous clothes

> Do you mean cherry blossoms? Not clothes per se...

And they sing and they dance around

Hardly anybody sings or dances

> Perhaps the people are too inhibited these days?

Hardly anybody dances or sings

> ah, you've switched singing and dancing. But why?

In this town that I call my own

>Does anyone else call it your own? Perhaps it's not. You're from Cork, I believe...

You have to hand it to the cherry trees

> you certainly seem to anyway...

And they seem to be saying,

To me anyway;

> you think they might not be saying it to anyone else?

"You know we've travelled all around the Sun

You know it's taken us one whole year

> what's this now?

Well done everyone, Well Done"

> er, thanks

It goes on like this. We have cherry blossoms in the air, on the street, at your feet, even in your hair. And, I think, it's a celebration of Spring we have on our hands here. We've travelled round the sun, it seems, and it's taken us a whole year. And we should be proud of our achievement. The cherry blossoms "seem" to be thanking us. And so is John Spillane for that matter.

Well done everyone, Well Done

On behalf of me

> John Spillane

and the Cherry Trees, Well Done!

> thanks Guys

And they seem to be saying

Is it only to me?;

> No, I is feelin' it too now, Spillane, man.

On behalf of me and the Cherry Trees, Well Done

Well Done Everyone, Well Done

> aw shucks

WELL DONE EVERYONE!

> ok, no need to shout

There's a lot going on here isn't there. I don't think it can be covered adequately on a mere blog. Some kind of PHD study would be more in order. But one point does need to be made. I'm no arborculturalist but I'm pretty sure that a "cherry tree" does not grow "cherry blossoms". I feel sure it grows cherries. If memory serves, it would be the cherry blossom, or Japanese flowering cherry, which blossoms thusly.

Anyway, that's the least of the song's problems so enough of my pedantry. I think it only remains for me, and you too if you'd care to join me, to congratulate John Spillane and his perennially woody muses on their fine work over the year and to wish them a Happy Spring!