"Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" | |
---|---|
Song | |
Language | English |
Released | March 14, 1955 |
Length | 3:04 |
Composer(s) | Pete Seeger |
Lyricist(s) | Pete Seeger and Joe Hickerson |
"Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" is a folk song written by American singer-songwriter Pete Seeger in 1955. Inspired lyrically by the traditional Cossack folk song "Koloda-Duda", Seeger borrowed an Irish melody for the music, [1] and published the first three verses in Sing Out! magazine. [2] Additional verses were added in May 1960 by Joe Hickerson, who turned it into a circular song. [3] Its rhetorical "where?" and meditation on death place the song in the ubi sunt tradition. [4] In 2010, the New Statesman listed it as one of the "Top 20 Political Songs". [5]
The 1964 release of the song as a Columbia Records Hall of Fame series 45 single, 13–33088, by Pete Seeger was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002 in the Folk category.
Seeger found inspiration for the song in October 1955 while he was on a plane bound for a concert at Oberlin College, one of the few venues which would hire him during the McCarthy era. [6] Leafing through his notebook he saw the passage, "Where are the flowers, the girls have plucked them. Where are the girls, they've all taken husbands. Where are the men, they're all in the army." [7] These lines were taken from the traditional Cossack folk-song "Koloda-Duda" (Ukrainian : Колода-дуда), referenced in the Mikhail Sholokhov novel And Quiet Flows the Don (1934), which Seeger had read "at least a year or two before". In a 2013 interview, Seeger explained that he borrowed the melody from an Irish lumberjack song with the words 'Johnson says he'll load more hay.' He simply slowed the tune and incorporated the lines into it. [8] [9]
Seeger created a song which was published in Sing Out in 1962. He recorded a version with three verses on The Rainbow Quest album (Folkways LP FA 2454) released in July 1960. Later, Joe Hickerson added two more verses with a recapitulation of the first [8] in May 1960 in Bloomington, Indiana. [10]
The song appeared on the compilation album Pete Seeger's Greatest Hits (1967) released by Columbia Records as CS 9416.
Pete Seeger's recording from the Columbia album The Bitter and the Sweet (November 1962), CL 1916, produced by John H. Hammond was also released as a Columbia Hall of Fame 45 single as 13-33088 backed by "Little Boxes" in August 1965. [11] [12]
Version | Title | Artist |
---|---|---|
Basque | Loreak non dira? | Lou Topet, Harkaitz Cano |
Belarusian | Дзе кветкі ўсе? | Bar Akaryna |
Belarusian | Дзе кветкі? (Dzie kvietki?) | Lavon Volski |
Bengali | version 1 Phul guli kothay gelo | Hemanga Biswas |
Bengali | কোথায় গেল তারা? (Kothay Tara) | Kabir Suman |
Catalan | Què se n'ha fet d'aquelles flors? | Roslyn Smith, La Marta (Club Super3) |
Chinese | 花兒怎麼不見了? | Poon Sow Keng (潘秀瓊) |
Croatian | Kamo je cvijeće otišlo? | Monia Verardi |
Czech | Řekni, kde ty kytky jsou | Judita Čeřovská, Marie Rottrová, Marta Kubišová |
Danish | Where Have All the Flowers Gone | Savage Rose |
Dutch | Zeg me waar de bloemen zijn | Jaap Fischer |
Esperanto | Ĉiuj floroj estas for | Duo Espera |
Estonian | Kuhu küll kõik lilled jäid | Heli Lääts |
Finnish | Minne kukat kadonneet | Kukonpojat |
French | Qui peut dire où vont les fleurs? | Eva, Marlene Dietrich, Francis Lemarque, Dalida |
German | Sag mir, wo die Blumen sind Sagt mir, wo die Blumen sind (Joan Baez) | Marlene Dietrich, Hannes Wader, Juliane Werding, Nana Mouskouri, Joan Baez, Lolita, Hildegard Knef, Einstürzende Neubauten |
Greece | Τα λουλούδια χάθηκαν The flowers were lost | Βασιλική Νίκα (Vasiliki Nika) |
Hebrew | איפה הפרחים כולם (eifo haprachim kulam) | שלישיית גשר הירקון (Yarkon Bridge Trio) |
Hungarian | Hova tűnt a sok virág? | Mária Mezei, Péter Gerendás, Erzsi Kovács, Éva Csepregi |
Icelandic | Hvert er farið blómið blátt? | Elly Vilhjálms & Ragnar Bjarnason |
Irish | Cá bhfuil siad uainn, scoth na mbláth? | Feargal Ó Béarra |
Italian | Dove andranno i nostri fiori? | Patty Pravo |
Japanese | Hana wa doko e itta? | Kiyoshiro Imawano |
Polish | Gdzie są kwiaty z tamtych lat? | Sława Przybylska |
Portuguese | Para onde foram todas as flores | Jarmila Ferreira Martins |
Romanian | Unde au dispărut toate florile | Alexandru Constantinescu |
Russian | Где цветы, дай мне ответ? (Gde cvety, day mne otvet?) | Oleg Nesterov, Masha Makarova |
Russian | Ты скажи мне, где цветы (Ty skazhi mne, gde tsvety) | Zhanna Bichevskaya |
Slovenian | Kam so šle vse rožice | Tomaž Domicelj |
Spanish | ¿Dónde están las flores? | Rolando Alarcón, Bárbara y Dick, Los Holiday's, Jorge Hernan |
Swedish | Inga blommor finns det mer | Lars Lönndahl |
Turkish | Söyle Çiçekler nerde? | Oğuz Tarihmen |
Ukrainian | Де всі квіти, розкажи (De vsi kvity, rozkazhy) | Maria Burmaka |
Ukrainian | Квіти де? Kvity De? | Yana Zavarzina |
Pete Seeger's recording of his composition was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least 25 years old and that have "qualitative or historical significance."
Pete Seeger: Grammy Hall of Fame Awards [32] | |||||
Year recorded | Title | Genre | Label | Year inducted | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1964 | "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" | Folk (single) | Columbia | 2002 |
Peter Seeger was an American folk singer and social activist. He was a fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, and had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, notably their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene," which topped the charts for 14 weeks in 1950. Members of the Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the 1960s, Seeger re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, counterculture, workers' rights, and environmental causes.
Joseph C. Hickerson is an American folk singer and musicologist. A graduate of Oberlin College, for 35 years (1963–1998) he was Librarian and Director of the Archive of Folk Song at the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress. Joe brought together the Ukrainian source and his own verses to create the basis for "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" in collaboration with Pete Seeger. He participated in the first LP recording of "Kumbayah". Along with Dave Guard, he is credited with the creation of the Kingston Trio's version of "Bonny Hielan Laddie". He is a lecturer, researcher, and performer, especially in New York State, Michigan, and the Chicago area. As of 2013 he is living in Portland, Oregon.
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