Apples and Walnuts
by John Peacock
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Streaming + DownloadPurchasable with gift card
about
Alex and Amanda asked me to play at their wedding, during the service, while they were away signing things (I explained that I didn't really understand weddings - most of my cohort tended to do it in registry offices, drag a couple of witnesses in off the street then go to Pizza Hut or Nandos with the kids afterwards, so I hadn't had much experience of the whole Wedding thing). I realised that I didn't really have anything - most of my songs, being miserablist things about the essential impermanence of everything, were more suited to a Buddhist funeral than an English wedding. However, within an hour, a song appeared and this is it. Whether or not it was appropriate, I can't say, but it was at least new. I've taken to telling people it's a metaphor. The wonderful things about metaphors is that it pushes the burden of comprehension off onto the listener and allows the speaker to get away with it scott free.
This is a live-in-the-studio version I recorded the week after the actual performance. The image is a photo that Ed Seyfried took of the actual performance.
This is a live-in-the-studio version I recorded the week after the actual performance. The image is a photo that Ed Seyfried took of the actual performance.
lyrics
We stand in the orchard
Above us trees mutter and sigh
Let our hearts testify
These are our witnesses
We dance in the orchard
To melodies hung on the air
We can't believe that they're there
But still we can hear them
How many feet
like ours have danced though this grass?
We feel the roots watch as we pass
Into history
How many kisses
Were stolen and given right here
Over hundreds of years?
These trees remember
They remember
The children come running and laughing and chasing
In blizzards of blossom while lovers are tracing their
Names in the bark of the trees they're embracing beneath
The farmer will calculate what he has won
When the ladders retreat and the harvest is done
Old men stop and rest in the cold winter sun
And breathe
And breathe
The trees live it differently
Don't see the years like we do
The orchard is dancing too
A different rhythm
If we could listen
To what the trees whisper and sing
Of the winter, the summer, the spring
The blossom, the ripening
And the harvest
And these little people who surge through the trees
The crawl and they run, they canoodle and wheeze
They roll in the snow and they float on the breeze
And then
They're constantly changing and always the same
They flow like the river and burn like a flame
And we know that we'd miss them if they never came
Back again
Come back again.
Apples and walnuts
Ripen and swell in the sun
And when the harvest is done
They wait in the darkness
Above us trees mutter and sigh
Let our hearts testify
These are our witnesses
We dance in the orchard
To melodies hung on the air
We can't believe that they're there
But still we can hear them
How many feet
like ours have danced though this grass?
We feel the roots watch as we pass
Into history
How many kisses
Were stolen and given right here
Over hundreds of years?
These trees remember
They remember
The children come running and laughing and chasing
In blizzards of blossom while lovers are tracing their
Names in the bark of the trees they're embracing beneath
The farmer will calculate what he has won
When the ladders retreat and the harvest is done
Old men stop and rest in the cold winter sun
And breathe
And breathe
The trees live it differently
Don't see the years like we do
The orchard is dancing too
A different rhythm
If we could listen
To what the trees whisper and sing
Of the winter, the summer, the spring
The blossom, the ripening
And the harvest
And these little people who surge through the trees
The crawl and they run, they canoodle and wheeze
They roll in the snow and they float on the breeze
And then
They're constantly changing and always the same
They flow like the river and burn like a flame
And we know that we'd miss them if they never came
Back again
Come back again.
Apples and walnuts
Ripen and swell in the sun
And when the harvest is done
They wait in the darkness
credits
released September 26, 2016
Vocals and guitar - John Peacock
Picture - Ed Seyfried
Vocals and guitar - John Peacock
Picture - Ed Seyfried
license
all rights reserved
tags
about
John Peacock London, UK
discography
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Oct 2022 -
Oct 2020 -
Apr 2020 -
Mar 2020 -
Sep 2016 -
Dec 2009 -
Jul 2000 -
Nov 1999
contact / help
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