In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree

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In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree is the name of a popular song dating from 1905. It was written by Harry Williams and Egbert Van Alstyne. The meter of its chorus is in the form of a Limerick.

It can safely be characterized as a highly sentimental tune. Although the verses (seldom heard nowadays) provide further explanation, it is clear that the writer is singing about a lost love:

In the shade of the old apple tree

Where the love in your eyes I could see

When the voice that I heard

Like the song of the bird

Seemed to whisper sweet music to me

I could hear the dull buzz of the bee

In the blossoms, as you said to me

With a heart that is true,

"I'll be waiting for you,

In the shade of the old apple tree."

[edit] Other uses

In the movie The Wizard of Oz, in the scene involving the talking apple trees who become angry with Dorothy for picking apples off them, the strains of this song are heard in the instrumental underscore.

Similarly, in Warner Bros. cartoons, for example, the tune was invoked in underscore sometimes, when trees were appearing on the screen.

[edit] Parody

A song like this, dripping with sentiment even by early-1900s standards, lent itself to parodies. Billy Murray recorded one. The verse describes him passing by the house of Maggie Jones, a maiden "homelier than me", who asks him to fetch some apples on the promise of giving him one of the pies she plans to bake. That verse continues into the chorus:

So I climbed up the old apple tree

For a pie was a real thing to me

She stood down below

With her apron spread "so"

To catch all the apples, you see

It looked like a picnic for me

But just then the limb broke; holy gee!

And I broke seven bones

And half-killed Maggie Jones

In the shade of the old apple tree