dichroic | two questions (Reply)

I have two questions, one musical and one astronomical.

Musical: A song mention from stillnotbored and something I was singing the other day got me thinking about songs that go around the seasons. So far I’ve thought of:

Simon & Garfunkel, “April, Come She Will” (only covers April – September!)
Archie Fisher, “Ashfields & Brine”
Mike Cross, “Wake Up My Love”
Anne Hills, “Follow that Road”

and in a different vein, “If Ever I Would Leave You” from the musical Camelot. The first four are among the songs I love, so now I’m curious: what other ones are out there?

Astronomical: I just got curious and looked up sunset times for Taipei. Oddly, it looks like the earliest sunsets of the year happen before winter solstice, from December 9-16. By solstice they’re already getting later, though the total length of the day is at its shortest. I checked a bunch of other cities, and the same thing happens there, though the actual dates of earliest sunset vary. The same thing happens in the Southern Hemisphere: in Perth, the earlier sunset is from June 5-17.

Can someone explain this to me? If is just because the Earth’s orbit is elliptical rather than round?

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.