My Cherie Amour,
Pretty little wombat I adore,
You're the only one my heart beats for....

The story:

I don't know if it ever got to the USA, but a popular kids' TV show in Great Britain in the 1970's was imported from Australia and called "Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo", all about a little boy whose best mate in the world was his preternaturally intelligent pet kangaroo called Skippy. This has a lot to answer for, as when I first heard Stevie Wonder perfom "Cherie Amour", my mind was set to "marsupial" and "pet".

I **sumed, I really **sumed, it was all about a beloved pet marsupial, and the song was along the lines of Michael Jackson singing about a dog called Ben.

But it wasn't, was it... as a friend pointed out in adulthood, it might have been a lot less innocent than I thought, about the forbidden love of man for marsupial. Or - as the wombat in question was called Cherie - a paean of love for Tony Blair's rather strangely-faced missus.. I do pride myself on having had a fairly clean mind and not having seen any of the dogier connotations....