Chestnut Tree (song)
| Matthew Bellamy Song | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Chenust Tree (song) | |||
| Album/single | Matt Bellamy x Ilan Eshkeri: George Orwell's 1984 | |||
| Length | 1:35 | |||
| Alternative titles | ||||
| First live performance | - | |||
| Latest live performance | - | |||
| Recorded | 2024 | |||
| Writer/composer | Matthew Bellamy | |||
| Producer | Matthew Bellamy | |||
| Matthew Bellamy Song Nav | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Room 101 | < | Chestnut Tree (song) | > | A Bright Cold Day |
Information
One of the few songs in the record on which Matt Bellamy is only credited on its composition. A melancholic piano song, similar to "1984 The World Of Big Brother", the opener of the album, it is followed by a violin.
The Chestnut Three Café is the place in where all party members, including Winston, go to drink alcohol but it is filled with Telescreens, it is also the place, on which dissidents and people who have gone through Room 101 usually gather to drink before "they were finally purged".
Winston remembers the song when looking at Rutherford, one of the oldest party members, crying after being forced to "confess his crimes". Rutherford along with Jones and Aaronson, was re-arrested and executed. Winston deduces that those "confessions" are lies.
Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me, there lie they, and here lie we, under the spreading chesnut tree
― George Orwell, 1984
Trivia
The lyrics, mentioned by Winston, are a reference to Glenn Miller's "The Chesnut Tree": Underneath the spreading chestnut tree, I loved him and he loved me, there lie they, and here lie we, under the spreading chesnut tree, There I used to sit up on his knee ´Neath the spreading chestnut tree.
Probably, the rhyme also makes reference reference to the poem "The Village Blacksmith" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
Under a spreading chestnut-tree, The village smithy stands; The smith, a mighty man is he, With large and sinewy hands, And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron bands.
(...)
He hears his daughter's voice Singing in the village choir, And it makes his heart rejoice.
It sounds to him like her mother's voice Singing in Paradise! He needs must think of her once more, How in the grave she lies; And with his hard, rough hand he wipes, A tear out of his eyes.
(...)
Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, For the lesson thou hast taught!