Don Cherry (Donald Eugene Cherry, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, November 18, 193… Read Full Bio ↴Don Cherry (Donald Eugene Cherry, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, November 18, 1936 - October 19, 1995) was an American jazz trumpeter. Don Cherry gained notoriety in the late 1950s through legendary Ornette Coleman recordings featuring Cherry's cornet and trumpet playing (sometimes featuring his playing of novel horns); including The Shape of Jazz to Come (1959) and Free Jazz (1961), the latter of which bred an entirely new sub-genre of jazz itself. After leaving Coleman and playing with John Coltrane on The Avant-Garde (1961), he signed a deal with Blue Note records to release three albums. The first and most famous of these recordings, Complete Communion (1965), proved Cherry's worth and originality as a composer by developing several different themes within each twenty minute piece and blurring the distinction between composition and improvisation. Don Cherry added during the late 1960s and beyond various world music elements to his work. He constantly traveled and implemented different ethnic elements, including the shenai (an oboe-like instrument) until his death in Malaga, Spain in 1995.
# 2 Donald Ross Cherry (January 11, 1924 – April 4, 2018) was an American traditional pop music and big band singer and former amateur and professional golfer. In music, he is best known for his 1955 hit "Band of Gold".
Cherry was born in Wichita Falls, Texas. He started as a big band singer in the orchestras of Jan Garber and Victor Young. In 1951 he recorded his first solo hits, "Thinking of You" and "Belle, Belle, My Liberty Belle". In 1955 came his biggest hit, "Band of Gold", which reached #5 on the Billboard chart. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. The track peaked at #6 in the UK Singles Chart. He had three more hits in 1956 ("Wild Cherry", "Ghost Town" and "Namely You"), all backed by orchestra leader Ray Conniff. He was also the voice of the Mr. Clean commercials during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Cherry published his biography, Cherry's Jubilee, with co-writer Neil Daniels He is a good friend of Willie Nelson and has collaborated on three albums with him, Augusta (1995), The Eyes of Texas (2002), and It's Magic (2007). Cherry was married four times, once to 1956 Miss America Sharon Ritchie, before wedding his present wife, Francine Bond Smith, in 1993. They live in Las Vegas, Nevada. His son, Stephen, was a casualty of the 9/11 attacks when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower. Stephen left behind four sons.
#1 Don Cherry Biography from the Musician Guide website:
Born November 18, 1936, in Oklahoma City, OK; father was a bartender/club manager and trumpet player; wife's name, Moki (an artist); children: Eagle-Eye (son), Nenah (stepdaughter). Education: Attended School of Jazz, Lenox, MA, 1959. Played in Samuel Brown's jazz band, Los Angeles, 1951; led the Jazz Messiahs, c. 1952; toured West Coast and Canada with James Clay; played with Ornette Coleman, beginning in 1953; performed at Five Spot Cafe, New York City, 1959-61; played with Sonny Rollins, 1961; co-founded New York Contemporary Five, c. 1962; toured Europe, 1963; co-led band with Gato Barbieri, 1964-66; member of quartet Old and New Dreams Band, beginning in the late 1970s; formed Codona, 1978; performed in jazz opera Cosmopolitan Greetings, Hamburg, West Germany, 1989; toured with quartet MultiKulti, beginning in 1990; performed with Hieroglyphics Ensemble big band, early 1990s. Teacher at Dartmouth College, 1970. Addresses: Home-- San Francisco, CA. Management-- The Brad Simon Organization, Inc., 122 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10022.
By the late 1980s, through the efforts of pop stars like Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, and David Byrne, the musical expressions of peoples as far-flung as South Africa, Brazil, and Bulgaria had begun to meld with Western styles to create what has become known as "world music" or "world beat." But jazz trumpeter and cornet player Don Cherry had become immersed in these unusual outpourings almost two decades earlier, traversing the planet in search of ever more exotic sounds, pursuing what he has called "the fun of endless learning." In fact, the nomadic Cherry is regularly referred to as "the musical Marco Polo."
As a trumpeter and veteran of jazz's front lines, Cherry has lent his personal sound and lyricism to groundbreaking work by musicians as diverse as Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Gato Barbieri, and Lou Reed. As a teacher, Cherry's students have included, according to his press biography, "Dartmouth [College] upperclassmen, Middle Eastern goatherders, teenagers at a Swedish music camp, and grammar-school children at the Storefront School in [New York City's] Harlem." The trumpet innovator has studied music in Morocco, India, Eastern Europe, and Sweden. And his "acoustic expeditions" throughout the underdeveloped quarters of the Earth are renowned.
Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on November 18, 1936, the grandson of a Choctaw Indian. He moved with his parents to the Watts section of Los Angeles in 1940, when he was four years old. Back in Oklahoma, Cherry's father, a trumpet player, had overseen the Cherry Blossom Jazz Club; in Los Angeles, the elder Cherry continued to play the trumpet and became involved with the then-flourishing Central Avenue jazz scene. His son was also enchanted by music and took piano lessons before starting trumpet in junior high school.
Cherry's high school music teacher and private tutor was Samuel Brown, who also instructed saxophonists Charles Lloyd and Wardell Gray, trumpeter Art Farmer, and pianist Hampton Hawes. Cherry would skip school to absorb the wisdom of radio tastemaker Johnny Otis and to catch performances by jazz greats Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, and Los Angeles native Dexter Gordon when they were playing nearby. At the age of 15, his truancy in full flower, Cherry began playing with an impressive jazz band led by Brown at neighboring Jefferson High School. At one point during high school, he led his own group, the Jazz Messiahs. Cherry even gigged with local professionals, including Gordon on occasion; by then he was proficient on the trumpet and piano and could compose as well.
As his high-school career progressed, Cherry's musical instincts began to develop and became more eclectic; he loved bebop, the early rock and roll of the Platters, and the Afro-Cuban sounds brought back to Los Angeles from south of the border by the merchant marine. It was during this seminal time in Cherry's development that he was introduced to saxophonist Ornette Coleman.
Cherry had just returned from a tour of the West Coast and Canada with Texas saxophonist James Clay. At the age of 17, he met Coleman, with whom he would have a long and fruitful association, in a Watts record store. Coleman had been generating quite a bit of controversy with his decidedly different approach to jazz improvisation. Cherry's preferred instrument at the time was a high-pitched pocket cornet. The young player's inclusive, experimental approach to his craft enabled him to enthusiastically embrace the style becoming known as free-form jazz.
In 1959 he spent a summer with Coleman at the School of Jazz in Lenox, Massachusetts; later Coleman's quartet, with Cherry on board, began its legendary engagement at New York City's Five Spot Cafe, which brought international attention and interest to the band. Releasing improvisation from the established chordal specifications of bebop, the quartet would ultimately exert a profound influence on the contemporary music that followed. In those early years of the "free-jazz" movement, Cherry's strong, wiry tone and rhythmically elastic phrasing rendered him an apt foil for Coleman. He developed an assortment of vocalized sounds, producing expressive squeals and split notes on both cornet and pocket trumpet.
After appearing on Coleman's first seven records, Cherry left the visionary saxman's group in 1961. He spent the following eight months playing with saxophonist Sonny Rollins. Over the next few years, Cherry worked with John Coltrane, Steve Lacy, and George Russell. He also co-founded a group called the New York Contemporary Five with saxophonists Archie Shepp and John Tchicai. In 1963, Cherry toured Europe with Albert Ayler and Shepp and met Argentine tenor saxophonist Gato Barbieri. Soon he was recording with Barbieri.
The full emergence of Cherry from Ornette Coleman's shadow was evidenced in 1965 on his collabortion with Barbieri on Blue Note Records' Complete Communion. Cherry's compositions are continuous, multithematic pieces reflecting a versatile, assertive, and creative improviser. From 1964 to 1966, Cherry co-led a European band with Barbieri.
In the late 1960s, Cherry began to explore the music of the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Indonesia. On 1968's Eternal Rhythm, Cherry played native wind and percussion instruments to create novel sounds. His direction was a marked departure from the free-jazz of that era.
After teaching at New Hampshire's Dartmouth College in 1970, Cherry and his family--he is the father of rap-soul artist Neneh Cherry and an actor-drummer son named Eagle-Eye--lived in Sweden until 1975, residing in an art school he had purchased there. After leaving Scandinavia, the family explored Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, traveling by camper. All the while Cherry gave casual concerts and jammed with the locals. "I didn't have any jobs lined up when I went," he revealed in his press biography, "I just went, and that's the way to do it if you're going to meet all the musicians and learn melodies and rhythms--if you're going to see all there is to see."
In the late 1970s, Cherry reunited with three former Coleman sidemen--Dewey Redman, Ed Blackwell, and Charlie Haden--to form the Old and New Dreams Band. The quartet labored to preserve and perpetuate the musical vision of their august former leader. Cherry formed an ensemble called Codona in 1978 with multi-instrumentalists Collin Walcott and Nana Vasconcelos. Codona specialized in a kaleidoscope of ethnic musics. Cherry sang and played piano, organ, melodica, wooden flutes, and a Malian hunter's guitar called the doussn'gouni. He continued to canvass the vast horizon of global music throughout the 1980s. His interests led him to compose extraordinary pieces, many of a solemn and ritualistic complexion.
In 1989, in Hamburg, West Germany, Cherry participated in the premiere production of avant-garde theater impresario Robert Wilson's jazz opera Cosmopolitan Greetings. Also that year, Rolling Stone named Cherry's Art Deco record of the year. In 1991, the artist received two San Francisco Bay Area Music Awards for his album MultiKulti, its title a play on the word multicultural. By then Cherry had become a Bay Area resident. According to his press bio, Cherry was also honored when New York City's jazz station WKCR-FM aired his work for an entire week, broadcasting over 100 hours of recordings, interviews, and commentary dating from 1959.
In 1990, Cherry hit the road with another quartet, also called MultiKulti, bringing his unique "gumbo" to, and undoubtedly borrowing from, locales from Spain to Japan. He was also performing then with his Hieroglyphics Ensemble big band, which had lent a hand to the MultiKulti sessions. "It's a great time in music right now," Cherry told Detroit Free Press contributor W. Kim Heron at the time, "whether they call it global music, world music, world beat, whatever. I just call it multikulti." Of the trumpet player's universal oeuvre Heron wrote, "Cherry's albums have been like so many postcards mailed home from an incredible musical journey."
Don Cherry's Career and Awards
Bay Area Music awards for outstanding jazz album, for MultiKulti, and outstanding reeds/brass player, both 1991.
Don Cherry's Discography
* Selective Works
* The Shape of Jazz to Come Atlantic, 1961.
* Free Jazz Atlantic, 1962.
* Complete Communion Blue Note, 1965.
* Symphony for Improvisers Blue Note, 1966.
* Where Is Brooklyn? Blue Note, 1966.
* Eternal Rhythm BASF, 1968.
* Human Music Flying Dutchman, 1970.
* Old and New Dreams ECM, 1970.
* Codona ECM, 1979.
* Art Deco A&M, 1989.
* MultiKulti A&M, 1991.
* Complete Blue Note Recordings of Don Cherry Mosaic, 1993.
Further Reading and Sources
* Boston Globe, March 16, 1990.
* CMJ New Music Report, November 9, 1990.
* Detroit Free Press, August 17, 1990.
* Downbeat, December 1990; February 1993.
* News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), February 26, 1991.
* New Statesman, October 16, 1987.
* Newsweek, August 28, 1989.
* People, January 22, 1990.
* Rolling Stone, December 14, 1989; May 2, 1991.
* Stereo Review, February 1990.
* Windplayer, Volume 9, Number 3.
* Wire, September 1990.
* Additional information for this profile was provided by a Brad Simon Organization press biography, 1991.
* --B. Kimberly Taylor
see website
# 2 Donald Ross Cherry (January 11, 1924 – April 4, 2018) was an American traditional pop music and big band singer and former amateur and professional golfer. In music, he is best known for his 1955 hit "Band of Gold".
Cherry was born in Wichita Falls, Texas. He started as a big band singer in the orchestras of Jan Garber and Victor Young. In 1951 he recorded his first solo hits, "Thinking of You" and "Belle, Belle, My Liberty Belle". In 1955 came his biggest hit, "Band of Gold", which reached #5 on the Billboard chart. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. The track peaked at #6 in the UK Singles Chart. He had three more hits in 1956 ("Wild Cherry", "Ghost Town" and "Namely You"), all backed by orchestra leader Ray Conniff. He was also the voice of the Mr. Clean commercials during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Cherry published his biography, Cherry's Jubilee, with co-writer Neil Daniels He is a good friend of Willie Nelson and has collaborated on three albums with him, Augusta (1995), The Eyes of Texas (2002), and It's Magic (2007). Cherry was married four times, once to 1956 Miss America Sharon Ritchie, before wedding his present wife, Francine Bond Smith, in 1993. They live in Las Vegas, Nevada. His son, Stephen, was a casualty of the 9/11 attacks when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower. Stephen left behind four sons.
#1 Don Cherry Biography from the Musician Guide website:
Born November 18, 1936, in Oklahoma City, OK; father was a bartender/club manager and trumpet player; wife's name, Moki (an artist); children: Eagle-Eye (son), Nenah (stepdaughter). Education: Attended School of Jazz, Lenox, MA, 1959. Played in Samuel Brown's jazz band, Los Angeles, 1951; led the Jazz Messiahs, c. 1952; toured West Coast and Canada with James Clay; played with Ornette Coleman, beginning in 1953; performed at Five Spot Cafe, New York City, 1959-61; played with Sonny Rollins, 1961; co-founded New York Contemporary Five, c. 1962; toured Europe, 1963; co-led band with Gato Barbieri, 1964-66; member of quartet Old and New Dreams Band, beginning in the late 1970s; formed Codona, 1978; performed in jazz opera Cosmopolitan Greetings, Hamburg, West Germany, 1989; toured with quartet MultiKulti, beginning in 1990; performed with Hieroglyphics Ensemble big band, early 1990s. Teacher at Dartmouth College, 1970. Addresses: Home-- San Francisco, CA. Management-- The Brad Simon Organization, Inc., 122 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10022.
By the late 1980s, through the efforts of pop stars like Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, and David Byrne, the musical expressions of peoples as far-flung as South Africa, Brazil, and Bulgaria had begun to meld with Western styles to create what has become known as "world music" or "world beat." But jazz trumpeter and cornet player Don Cherry had become immersed in these unusual outpourings almost two decades earlier, traversing the planet in search of ever more exotic sounds, pursuing what he has called "the fun of endless learning." In fact, the nomadic Cherry is regularly referred to as "the musical Marco Polo."
As a trumpeter and veteran of jazz's front lines, Cherry has lent his personal sound and lyricism to groundbreaking work by musicians as diverse as Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Gato Barbieri, and Lou Reed. As a teacher, Cherry's students have included, according to his press biography, "Dartmouth [College] upperclassmen, Middle Eastern goatherders, teenagers at a Swedish music camp, and grammar-school children at the Storefront School in [New York City's] Harlem." The trumpet innovator has studied music in Morocco, India, Eastern Europe, and Sweden. And his "acoustic expeditions" throughout the underdeveloped quarters of the Earth are renowned.
Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on November 18, 1936, the grandson of a Choctaw Indian. He moved with his parents to the Watts section of Los Angeles in 1940, when he was four years old. Back in Oklahoma, Cherry's father, a trumpet player, had overseen the Cherry Blossom Jazz Club; in Los Angeles, the elder Cherry continued to play the trumpet and became involved with the then-flourishing Central Avenue jazz scene. His son was also enchanted by music and took piano lessons before starting trumpet in junior high school.
Cherry's high school music teacher and private tutor was Samuel Brown, who also instructed saxophonists Charles Lloyd and Wardell Gray, trumpeter Art Farmer, and pianist Hampton Hawes. Cherry would skip school to absorb the wisdom of radio tastemaker Johnny Otis and to catch performances by jazz greats Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, and Los Angeles native Dexter Gordon when they were playing nearby. At the age of 15, his truancy in full flower, Cherry began playing with an impressive jazz band led by Brown at neighboring Jefferson High School. At one point during high school, he led his own group, the Jazz Messiahs. Cherry even gigged with local professionals, including Gordon on occasion; by then he was proficient on the trumpet and piano and could compose as well.
As his high-school career progressed, Cherry's musical instincts began to develop and became more eclectic; he loved bebop, the early rock and roll of the Platters, and the Afro-Cuban sounds brought back to Los Angeles from south of the border by the merchant marine. It was during this seminal time in Cherry's development that he was introduced to saxophonist Ornette Coleman.
Cherry had just returned from a tour of the West Coast and Canada with Texas saxophonist James Clay. At the age of 17, he met Coleman, with whom he would have a long and fruitful association, in a Watts record store. Coleman had been generating quite a bit of controversy with his decidedly different approach to jazz improvisation. Cherry's preferred instrument at the time was a high-pitched pocket cornet. The young player's inclusive, experimental approach to his craft enabled him to enthusiastically embrace the style becoming known as free-form jazz.
In 1959 he spent a summer with Coleman at the School of Jazz in Lenox, Massachusetts; later Coleman's quartet, with Cherry on board, began its legendary engagement at New York City's Five Spot Cafe, which brought international attention and interest to the band. Releasing improvisation from the established chordal specifications of bebop, the quartet would ultimately exert a profound influence on the contemporary music that followed. In those early years of the "free-jazz" movement, Cherry's strong, wiry tone and rhythmically elastic phrasing rendered him an apt foil for Coleman. He developed an assortment of vocalized sounds, producing expressive squeals and split notes on both cornet and pocket trumpet.
After appearing on Coleman's first seven records, Cherry left the visionary saxman's group in 1961. He spent the following eight months playing with saxophonist Sonny Rollins. Over the next few years, Cherry worked with John Coltrane, Steve Lacy, and George Russell. He also co-founded a group called the New York Contemporary Five with saxophonists Archie Shepp and John Tchicai. In 1963, Cherry toured Europe with Albert Ayler and Shepp and met Argentine tenor saxophonist Gato Barbieri. Soon he was recording with Barbieri.
The full emergence of Cherry from Ornette Coleman's shadow was evidenced in 1965 on his collabortion with Barbieri on Blue Note Records' Complete Communion. Cherry's compositions are continuous, multithematic pieces reflecting a versatile, assertive, and creative improviser. From 1964 to 1966, Cherry co-led a European band with Barbieri.
In the late 1960s, Cherry began to explore the music of the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Indonesia. On 1968's Eternal Rhythm, Cherry played native wind and percussion instruments to create novel sounds. His direction was a marked departure from the free-jazz of that era.
After teaching at New Hampshire's Dartmouth College in 1970, Cherry and his family--he is the father of rap-soul artist Neneh Cherry and an actor-drummer son named Eagle-Eye--lived in Sweden until 1975, residing in an art school he had purchased there. After leaving Scandinavia, the family explored Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, traveling by camper. All the while Cherry gave casual concerts and jammed with the locals. "I didn't have any jobs lined up when I went," he revealed in his press biography, "I just went, and that's the way to do it if you're going to meet all the musicians and learn melodies and rhythms--if you're going to see all there is to see."
In the late 1970s, Cherry reunited with three former Coleman sidemen--Dewey Redman, Ed Blackwell, and Charlie Haden--to form the Old and New Dreams Band. The quartet labored to preserve and perpetuate the musical vision of their august former leader. Cherry formed an ensemble called Codona in 1978 with multi-instrumentalists Collin Walcott and Nana Vasconcelos. Codona specialized in a kaleidoscope of ethnic musics. Cherry sang and played piano, organ, melodica, wooden flutes, and a Malian hunter's guitar called the doussn'gouni. He continued to canvass the vast horizon of global music throughout the 1980s. His interests led him to compose extraordinary pieces, many of a solemn and ritualistic complexion.
In 1989, in Hamburg, West Germany, Cherry participated in the premiere production of avant-garde theater impresario Robert Wilson's jazz opera Cosmopolitan Greetings. Also that year, Rolling Stone named Cherry's Art Deco record of the year. In 1991, the artist received two San Francisco Bay Area Music Awards for his album MultiKulti, its title a play on the word multicultural. By then Cherry had become a Bay Area resident. According to his press bio, Cherry was also honored when New York City's jazz station WKCR-FM aired his work for an entire week, broadcasting over 100 hours of recordings, interviews, and commentary dating from 1959.
In 1990, Cherry hit the road with another quartet, also called MultiKulti, bringing his unique "gumbo" to, and undoubtedly borrowing from, locales from Spain to Japan. He was also performing then with his Hieroglyphics Ensemble big band, which had lent a hand to the MultiKulti sessions. "It's a great time in music right now," Cherry told Detroit Free Press contributor W. Kim Heron at the time, "whether they call it global music, world music, world beat, whatever. I just call it multikulti." Of the trumpet player's universal oeuvre Heron wrote, "Cherry's albums have been like so many postcards mailed home from an incredible musical journey."
Don Cherry's Career and Awards
Bay Area Music awards for outstanding jazz album, for MultiKulti, and outstanding reeds/brass player, both 1991.
Don Cherry's Discography
* Selective Works
* The Shape of Jazz to Come Atlantic, 1961.
* Free Jazz Atlantic, 1962.
* Complete Communion Blue Note, 1965.
* Symphony for Improvisers Blue Note, 1966.
* Where Is Brooklyn? Blue Note, 1966.
* Eternal Rhythm BASF, 1968.
* Human Music Flying Dutchman, 1970.
* Old and New Dreams ECM, 1970.
* Codona ECM, 1979.
* Art Deco A&M, 1989.
* MultiKulti A&M, 1991.
* Complete Blue Note Recordings of Don Cherry Mosaic, 1993.
Further Reading and Sources
* Boston Globe, March 16, 1990.
* CMJ New Music Report, November 9, 1990.
* Detroit Free Press, August 17, 1990.
* Downbeat, December 1990; February 1993.
* News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), February 26, 1991.
* New Statesman, October 16, 1987.
* Newsweek, August 28, 1989.
* People, January 22, 1990.
* Rolling Stone, December 14, 1989; May 2, 1991.
* Stereo Review, February 1990.
* Windplayer, Volume 9, Number 3.
* Wire, September 1990.
* Additional information for this profile was provided by a Brad Simon Organization press biography, 1991.
* --B. Kimberly Taylor
see website
Wild Cherry
Don Cherry Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Wild, wild, wild, wild, wild Cherry
Living high and, oh, so merry
If I only could reach you, Cherry
Oh, what I'd teach you
Wild, wild, wild, wild, wild Cherry
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, wild Cherry
Why, why are you so contrary
You know I need your kissing
Still you keep on resisting
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, wild Cherry
You're warm and tender
You're full of fire
And you should be here in my arms
Won't you surrender to my desire
Why waste the magic of your charms
I'll keep after you, you
Wild, wild, wild, wild, wild Cherry
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, wild Cherry
Someday you'll fall and I'll catch you
And that day, Cherry, I bet you'll be mine
Wild, wild, wild, wild, wild Cherry
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, wild Cherry
Living high and, oh, so merry
If I only could reach you, Cherry
Oh, what I'd teach you
Wild, wild, wild, wild, wild Cherry
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, wild Cherry
Why, why are you so contrary
Still you keep on resisting
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, wild Cherry
You're warm and tender
You're full of fire
And you should be here in my arms
Won't you surrender to my desire
Why waste the magic of your charms
I'll keep after you, you
Wild, wild, wild, wild, wild Cherry
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, wild Cherry
Someday you'll fall and I'll catch you
And that day, Cherry, I bet you'll be mine
Wild, wild, wild, wild, wild Cherry
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, wild Cherry
The lyrics to Don Cherry’s song Wild Cherry seem to be about a man who is infatuated with a woman, Cherry, who he refers to as wild and contrary. He wants to teach her and be with her, but she resists him despite his desire for her. The man refers to Cherry as warm and tender, full of fire and magic, but he can’t seem to win her over at this time. However, the man remains persistent, and he believes that someday Cherry will fall for him, and they’ll be together.
One interpretation of these lyrics could be that the woman being referred to is not interested in the man, and he is trying to win her over despite her resistance. Or it could be interpreted that she may not be ready for a relationship and the man may be moving too fast for her. The chorus repeats twice, highlighting that Cherry is both wild and sweet, potentially representing a duality to her character.
Overall, the lyrics of Wild Cherry describe a persistent man trying to win the heart of a woman who may not be interested in him or may be hesitant to jump into a relationship. The repetition of the chorus and the mentions of Cherry’s wild and sweet nature add a layer of complexity to the story, making it unclear whether or not the two will end up together.
Line by Line Meaning
Wild, wild, wild, wild, wild Cherry
The singer describes Cherry as wild, exciting and unpredictable.
Living high and, oh, so merry
Cherry is living life to the fullest and enjoying it.
If I only could reach you, Cherry
The singer is separated from Cherry and desires to be close to them.
Oh, what I'd teach you
If given the chance to be with Cherry, the singer would teach them about love and romance.
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, wild Cherry
The singer describes Cherry as both sweet and wild.
Why, why are you so contrary
The singer questions why Cherry is being difficult or resistant to their advances.
You know I need your kissing
The singer expresses their desire for physical affection from Cherry.
Still you keep on resisting
Despite the singer's desires, Cherry continues to resist their advances.
You're warm and tender
The singer describes Cherry as affectionate and loving.
You're full of fire
Cherry is also described as passionate and full of energy.
And you should be here in my arms
The singer believes Cherry belongs in their embrace.
Won't you surrender to my desire
The singer is urging Cherry to give in to their romantic desires.
Why waste the magic of your charms
The singer believes Cherry is wasting their attractive qualities by not giving in to their advances.
I'll keep after you, you
The singer is not giving up on Cherry and will continue to pursue them.
Someday you'll fall and I'll catch you
The singer predicts that eventually, Cherry will let their guard down and they will be there to catch them.
And that day, Cherry, I bet you'll be mine
The singer is confident that once Cherry falls for them, they will finally be together.
Contributed by Annabelle P. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
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@1956MercM260
Holy cow, what a fantastic blast from the past! It's been a long time since I last heard this...thanks!
@edwiles5258
i finally found it.....i was 9 years old when this came out but i can still remember it well....my dad owned restaunts and i woud go to work with him a lot and i spent a lot of time listening to the juke box and knew by heart about all the songs of those days....occasionally one of thes old songs pops up in my heard from 70 or more years ago and i am so happy to be abled to hear it again....thanks
@12345Pilar
What an absolutely perfect voice, huh! I'm wondering if this song was especially written for Don! Lovely.
@hiddengospel
Great song! Needs to be adapted for today's COUNTRY audience! BAMM!
@CatsPjamas1
@AristotleCalhoun Thanks very much for giving this song a try and for commenting!
@davidsole2204
Does anyone know the guitar chords for this song? I can't find them anywhere
@davidsole2204
I tried to figure out the chords myself as this song reminds me of a girl who made me very happy not so long ago and I really needed these chords for a proper closure. I hope the chords are OK, if anyone knows a better version please let me know.
(D) Wild, wild, wild, wild, wild Cherry
Living high and, oh, so merry (A)
(D) If I (D7) only could reach you, (G) Cherry
(Gm) Oh, what I'd teach you
(D) Wild, (A) wild, wild, wild, wild (D) Cherry
(D) Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, wild Cherry
Why, why are you so contrary (A)
(D) You know (D7) I need your kissing
(G) Still you (Gm) keep on resisting
(D) Sweet, (A) sweet, sweet, sweet, wild (D) Cherry (D7)
(G) You're warm and tender
(D) You're full of fire
(A) And you should be here in my arms (D) (D7)
(G) Won't you surrender (D) to my desire
(E) Why waste the magic of your charms (A)
(A7) I'll keep after you, you
(D) Wild, wild, wild, wild, wild Cherry
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, wild Cherry (A)
(D) Someday you'll (D7) fall and I'll catch you
And (G) that day, (Gm) Cherry, I bet you'll be (D) mine
(A) Wild, wild, wild, wild, wild (D) Cherry
(D) Sweet, (A) sweet, sweet, sweet, wild (D) Cherry
@user-vm4gv3xv6e
조회수 7,423회... 잘 들었습니다.
@CatsPjamas1
@1956MercM260 You're welcome!