Unearthing Heron, pt. 8

 

This song, with lines like “Sitting in your mother’s garden, smoking Lebanese/Beneath the privet hedge,” and “We walked across the fields of Berkshire, resting in the hay,” shows the freak folk side of the band – the hash smoking, very English, rural guys. To be honest I know very little about their biographies, but that is the suggestion I get from what I’ve read so far.

Regarding the term “Lebanese,” I asked someone I know who lived in England in the 60s and 70s and he told me, “We used to get loads of Red and Gold Lebanese, brought in as kosher cheese.” (Internet research came up with a reference to “Lebanese” from as early as 1969). A privet hedge is a common feature of an English garden, which grows as a thick shrub wall which can often serve as a property border. And Berkshire is a county just west of London, with the largest town being Reading, although the band met up at a folk club in Maidenhead..

An Apps tune, most of the singing is Roy and Pook, with Moore singing on the chorus. A faint Hammond Organ part compliments the song in the center of the speakers. If I haven’t given enough credit to Steve Jones before, let me be sure to mention now what an important part of the group’s sound he is. Such complimentary keyboard/accordion work, perhaps because he was brought in after the songs were mostly written, that never outstays its welcome.

 The song itself concerns an unrequited love, of a young person getting to know someone in the late summer. Someone trying to interpret romantic signs but ultimately resigned to just realizing that the romance wasn’t going to happen. The word “reflection” in the title has a double meaning, as it can refer to the reflection in the lake mentioned in the song.

Lying by the lake in August, rolling in the leaves

Down by the water's edge

Sitting in your mother's garden, smoking Lebanese

Beneath the privet hedge

And though I thought I caught the warmth behind your smile

I could have been deceived

But with my tear-washed eyelashes

I should have been believed

And it would be alright now we have said goodbye

But you didn't even touch my lips

But you didn't even try

We walked across the fields of Berkshire, resting in the hay

And making daisy chains

Out along the streams and rivers spread across the way

And swelled with recent rain

Stepping home a little sadly, slipping through the trees

Much slower than we came

Till getting home I kissed you once

And you just spoke my name

And it would be alright now we have said goodbye

But you didn't even touch my lips

But you didn't even try