Most songs written have fallen into one theme or another - there have been songs about love, day and night, good and bad, life and death.... and fruit!
Yes, there have been an awful lot of fruity songs over the decades, and today we celebrate ten of those, covering five decades of incompearable tunes.
1. Erykah Badu: Appletree
Texan Erykah Badu was very quickly known as the 'Queen of Neo Soul', with a singing style often compared to Billie Holiday. She was a talented youth and was freestyling on a local radio station at age 14. Also around this time she changed the spelling of her name from Erica to Erykah - she felt Erica was a slave name, and the added 'kah' represents inner strength. The adopted Badu surname comes from her favourite jazz scat sound. This was the furth single from her debut album, Baduizm. Badu had dropped out of Grambling State University (in Louisiana) early to work on this debut album. The song was written with her cousin Robert Bradford.
Erykah Badu: Appletree (Audio only)
2. The Move: Blackberry Way
This tune was written by Roy Wood, who would note in 1994 that it was his favourite Move song of all. The Birmingham band managed nine UK Top20 singles over five years, but were one of the few major British bands of the time to not achieve much success in the US. Several members of the band weren't so keen on Blackberry Way's psychedelic pop sound, with lead singer Carl Wayne refused to sing it, meaning that Wood ended up doing lead vocals. Guitarist Trevor Burton was another who wasn't necessarily a fan of the sound, and left the band soon after.
The Move: Blackberry Way (Live on Beat Club, German TV, 1969)
3. Led Zeppelin: The Lemon Song
Second album, 1969s Led Zeppelin II, was generally seen as Led Zeppelin's heaviest album (it includes Whole Lotta Love, Ramble On and Heartbreaker). The Lemon Song is actually a re-arrangement of 1950s Chicago bluesman, Howlin' Wolf's song Killing Floor. The band had already starting to include the song in their live set across 1969. They also added a bit of innuendo to their version by adding in "squeeze my lemon", which was borrowed from Travelin' Riverside Blues by Robert Johnson.
Led Zeppelin: The Lemon Song (Audio only)
4. Shonen Knife: Banana Chips
Shonen Knife are a fun pop punk band that formed in Osaka in 1981, based around sisters Naoko and Atsuko Yamano (Naoko has been the only ever-present member). They have absorbed a wide range of influences; the girl groups of the 60s, the harmonies of the Beach Boys and the punk sound of the Ramones - and have a long tradition of food based songs. Kurt Cobain was a big fan of theirs, and got them open for Nirvana on their European tour in 1991 (just as Nevermind was breaking them into the big time). The increased exposure led to Shonen Knife signing with Capitol Records. 1998s Happy Hour was the last album they did before original bassist Michie Nakatani left the band and retired from music. Banana Chips is a heck of a catchy tune - I challenge you not to tap your feet to this one.
Shonen Knife: Banana Chips (Official music video - English version)
5. Presidents of the USA: Peaches
This has what has to be one of the finest lines of pop music of all time - "Peaches come from a can, they were put there by a man, in a factory downtown." Pretty amazing, eh? The band admitted that some of the riffage is based on the classic 70s rock tune, Feel Like Makin' Love by Bad Company. The lyrics are at least partially inspired by lead singer / bassist Chris Ballew taking LSD and ending up under a peach tree having failed in his attempt to meet up with the girl he fancied at the time. Ballew apparently overheard a homeless man in Seattle muttering, "I'm moving to the country, I'm going to eat a lot of peaches", which he adapted into the lyrics (it also happens to be a line in Spanish Pipedream by John Prine).
Presidents of the USA: Peaches (Official music video)
6. Fats Domino: Blueberry Hill
Although perhaps known as Fats Domino's signature tune in 1956, Blueberry Hill was originally published in 1940 and released by Sammy Kaye. That was the first of an incredible ten versions that were recorded that year. Glenn Miller also did a version, with Ray Eberle on vocals, as did Gene Autry, whose version appeared in his 1941 film The Singing Hill. Thee music was by Vincent Rose, with lyrics by Larry Stock and Al Lewis. It became Domino's biggest hit, reaching number 2 in the US.
Fats Domino: Blueberry Hill (live in Rome, 1989)
7. The Beatles: Strawberry Fields Forever
This was a John Lennon penned tune, that was, as ever, credited to Lennon/McCartney. It became a double A-Side with Penny Lane, and was the first song the band recorded after their Revolver album. The lyrics were based on his childhood memories of playing in the gardens of Strawberry Field, a Salvation Army children's home in Liverpool. It signalled their move into the world of psychedelic pop, and took 45 hours of recording, over 5 weeks, in which time they came up with three versions of the song (the final version combined two of them). Perhaps surprisingly, it didn't make the UK number one spot, breaking a four year run of chart toppers.
The Beatles: Strawberry Fields Forever ('Official music video')
8. Crowded House: Pineapple Head
Pineapple Head is based around several phrases uttered while son Neil Finn's eldest son, Liam (co-incidentally, now also a member of Crowded House), was having a fever dream one night. The music has a 3/4 time signature, which gives it that waltz-like lope, and is somewhat unusual as most pop songs tend to be written in 4/4 time (apparently). The song has been described by some as having broad similarities with Norwegian Wood. The album from which it comes, Together Alone, was recorded at the remote Kare Kare beach on the west of New Zealand's North Island. It would become the fourth and final record of the band's original run - drummer Paul Hester would quit, tired and homesick, midway through the ensuing US tour, with Finn formally announcing the break up the following year.
Crowded House: Pineapple Head (live on Much Music, 1993)
9. Prince & The Revolution: Raspberry Beret
Can you believe it, but Prince Rogers Nelson has been gone eight years already (April 2016)! His mother was the jazz singer Mattie Della, while his dad, John Lewis Nelson, was a pianist and songwriter Prince Rogers was one of his dad's stage names and he would go on to sell over 150 million albums during his lifetime. The Purple One went all raspberry in colour for this song, another upbeat, funky, sexy song that Prince was the master of writing.
Prince & The Revolution: Raspberry Beret (Official music video)
10. R.E.M.: Orange Crush
Interestingly, Orange Crush (from sixth album, Green) was never released as a single in the US, but made number 28 in the UK charts. This was cleverly packaged up into a smart 3-minute pop song that many thought was about a soda. It was actually about Agent Orange, a horrific chemical defoliant used in the Vietnam War. Lead singer Michael Stipe's father had been out there, and once you listen more closely, the military overtones are very clear. Stipe himself later said it was about "the impact on soldiers returning to a country that wrongly blamed them for the war".
R.E.M.: Orange Crush (Official music video)