When I was just a lad of ten, my father said to me,
“Come here and take a lesson from the lovely lemon tree.”
“Don’t put your faith in love, my boy,” my father said to me,
“I fear you’ll find that love is like the lovely lemon tree.”
Chorus
Lemon tree, very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the lemon is impossible to eat.
Lemon tree, very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet,
But the fruit of the lemon is impossible to eat.
One day beneath the lemon tree, my love and I did lie,
A girl so sweet that when she smiled, the stars rose in the sky.
We passed that summer lost in love, beneath the lemon tree,
The music of her laughter hid my father’s words from me.
Chorus
One day she left without a word, she took away the sun.
And in the dark she left behind, I knew what she had done.
She left me for another, it’s a common tale but true,
A sadder man, but wiser now, I sing these words to you.
(Peter Paul and Mary,1962, “Lemon Tree“, in Peter Paul and Mary, Boulder Music Corp.-BMI)
What’s the difference between folk and pop music?
Folk is the music of a people (in English folk > people), but the term Pop also references people since it is the abbreviation of the Anglo-Saxon term popular. Now, if both genders refer to people, you may ask what is the actual difference?
Folk music is tied to the traditions of a specific people, like traditional American or Irish music. It is meant to celebrate the people’s own origins, be heard and danced to at local fairs and is often played by amateur musicians on instruments like bagpipes, accordions or mandolins.
The pop gender instead refers to music enjoyed by the masses, of commercial nature and not necessarily tied to a specific geographical location or culture. Its sounds recall rock’n’roll, rhytm’n’blues and hip hop. The undisputed queen of pop music is the American singer of Italian descent Louise Veronica Ciccone, whose stage name is Madonna.
