Lilacs Bloomed Every Spring, Just like before… I loved that eerie song about the Soldier Boy by John Rutter. We sang it in our SATB choir in either Highschool or Junior High. I’ll type the full lyrics if I can remember them.
Update: For anyone who found this page googling for the song Soldier Boy, this is the only recording I’ve been able to find in 2025, a high school choir. And here is a sample from an iVoci CD I bought — certainly the best I’ve come across! The director gave me permission to share. But alas, that group doesn’t seem to exist anymore.
Every spring with the lovely smell of lilacs blooming, I’m reminded of high school choir and the seven (really fourteen) years this poor maiden waited for her soldier tend to stick in my mind. And the fact that he seemed so enchanted by the war with its mighty cannons and golden bugles. And his fine coat for that matter. It gave me the chills.
Here are the lyrics as I’ve remembered them:
“Soldier Boy, soldier boy,
Where are you going to in your coat so fine?
“I am riding off to war where the mighty cannons roar;
where the golden bugel shines…
Oh, Lady Fair, be mine.
“Soldier Boy, soldier boy,
When will you come again in your coat so fine?
“When the leaves a green again; when the lilacs bloom again;
When there is an end to war
Then I will come once more.”
“Seven Times and seven more,
leaves turned to green again
Lilacs bloomed every spring,
just like before.
But there was no end to war;
seven years, then seven more.
Still she waited just the same
And no one ever came.”
Plenty of spooky ooooo-ing follows. I’m not making fun though. The song really is spooky. All the brilliance and hope of youth – twice over lost to fighting. How many thousands of times do you suppose has this happened in the history of our world? And how many times more will it happen?
Anyway. It’s a memory strongly tied even to the scent. Here are a few pictures I’ve taken when I’ve thought of it.
Related, sortof, have you ever noticed how most lilacs have four petals, but a few have five? Well look at this little blossom:
Yes, I embrace my nerd-dom, but I know you all love me just the same or you wouldn’t be here. I’d never seen anything but a double-blossomed lilac have more than four petals. Then I noticed quite a few on this odd tree had five. But six. I still think that’s special.
Legend of Velda 
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