"Sweet Cherry Wine" is a song by Tommy James and the Shondells from their 1969 album Cellophane Symphony. The song hit number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number six on the Canadian charts. This psychedelic song was released at the height of psychedelia and right after one previous psychedelic song by Tommy James and the Shondells, "Crimson and Clover", and before "Crystal Blue Persuasion". It actually expresses Tommy James' Christian beliefs, particularly that "sweet cherry wine" is indeed the Blood of Christ. The song begins with the use of an organ, adds brass instruments, and ends with a solo flute that fades out at the end of the song. Adding to the psychedelia of this and other songs on the album was the then-new Moog synthesizer.
It is also a quiet protest of the Vietnam War. "Yesterday my friend went off marching to war...we ain't a marching anymore".
Famous quotes containing the words sweet, cherry and/or wine:
“We devastate them unreligiously,
And coldly ask their pottage, not their love.
Therefore they shove us from them, yield to us
Only what to our griping toil is due;
But the sweet affluence of love and song,
The rich results of the divine consents
Of man and earth, of world beloved and lover;
The nectar and ambrosia, are withheld.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The cherry orchard is now mine!... I bought the estate on which my grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even permitted in the kitchen.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“Good friends, go in, and taste some wine with me,
And we, like friends, will straightway go together.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)