ON THIS DATE (49 YEARS AGO) October 1, 1965 - The Byrds: Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season) b/w She Dont Care About Time (Columbia 4-43424) 45 single is released in the US. Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There Is a Season), often abbreviated to Turn! Turn! Turn!, is a song adapted entirely from the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible (with the exception of the last line) and put to music by Pete Seeger in 1959. Seeger waited until 1962 to record his own version of it, releasing the song on his The Bitter and the Sweet album on Columbia Records. The song became an international hit in late 1965 when it was covered by the American folk rock band The Byrds, reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #26 on the UK Singles Chart. Turn! Turn! Turn! was the third single by the American folk rock band The Byrds and was released on October 1, 1965 by Columbia Records. The song was also included on the bands second album, Turn! Turn! Turn!, which was released on December 6, 1965. The song had first been arranged by The Byrds lead guitarist Jim McGuinn in a chamber-folk style during sessions for Judy Collins 1963 album, Judy Collins 3. The idea of reviving the song came to McGuinn during The Byrds July 1965 tour of the American Midwest, when his future wife, Dolores, requested the tune on the Byrds tour bus. The rendering that McGuinn dutifully played came out sounding not like a folk song but more like a rock/folk hybrid, perfectly in keeping with The Byrds current status as pioneers of the folk rock genre. McGuinn explained It was a standard folk song by that time, but I played it and it came out rock ‘n’ roll because that’s what I was programmed to do like a computer. I couldn’t do it as it was traditionally. It came out with that samba beat, and we thought it would make a good single. The master recording of the song reputedly took 78 takes, spread over five days of recording, to complete. The songs plea for peace and tolerance struck a nerve with the American record buying public as the Vietnam War continued to escalate. The single also solidified folk rock as a chart trend and, like the bands previous hits, continued The Byrds successful mix of vocal harmony and jangly twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar playing. Pete Seeger expressed his approval of the Byrds rendering of the song. Many biblical scholars believe that Ecclesiastes 1:1 implies King Solomon (born c. 1011 BC) as the books author, but regardless of its precise origins, The Byrds version of the song easily holds the record for the number 1 hit with the oldest lyrics. The lyrics are taken almost verbatim from the Book of Ecclesiastes, as found in the King James Version (1611) of the Bible (Ecclesiastes 3:1), though the sequence of the words was rearranged for the song. Ecclesiastes is traditionally ascribed to King Solomon. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. The Biblical text posits there being a time and place for all things: laughter and sorrow, healing and killing, war and peace, and so on. The lines are open to myriad interpretations, but as a song they are commonly performed as a plea for world peace, with an emphasis on the closing line: a time for peace, I swear its not too late. This line and the title phrase Turn! Turn! Turn! are the only parts of the lyric written by Seeger himself. The Byrds
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 07:58:13 +0000