Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

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"Where Have All The Flowers Gone?"
Pete Seeger 45 Hall Of Fame.jpg
Columbia Hall of Fame 45 rpm single release as 13-33088 featuring the November 1962 version
Song
LanguageEnglish
ReleasedMarch 14, 1955 (1955-03-14)
Length3:04
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]

Contents

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.

Composition

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]

Versions

1961−1964

1965−1969

1970−1979

1980−1989

1990−1999

2000−2009

2010−2019

2020−

Foreign-language titles

VersionTitleArtist
BasqueLoreak non dira?Lou Topet, Harkaitz Cano
BelarusianДзе кветкі ўсе?Bar Akaryna
BelarusianДзе кветкі? (Dzie kvietki?) Lavon Volski
Bengaliversion 1 Phul guli kothay gelo Hemanga Biswas
Bengaliকোথায় গেল তারা? (Kothay Tara) Kabir Suman
CatalanQuè 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)
CroatianKamo je cvijeće otišlo? Monia Verardi
CzechŘekni, kde ty kytky jsou Judita Čeřovská, Marie Rottrová, Marta Kubišová
DanishWhere Have All the Flowers Gone Savage Rose
DutchZeg me waar de bloemen zijn Jaap Fischer
EnglishWhere have all the flowers gone? Pete Seeger, The Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, Johnny Rivers, many others
Esperanto Ĉiuj floroj estas for Duo Espera
EstonianKuhu küll kõik lilled jäid Heli Lääts
Finnish Minne kukat kadonneet Kukonpojat
FrenchQui peut dire où vont les fleurs? Eva, Marlene Dietrich, Francis Lemarque, Dalida
GermanSag 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
GreeceΤα λουλούδια χάθηκαν
The flowers were lost
Βασιλική Νίκα (Vasiliki Nika)
Hebrewאיפה הפרחים כולם (eifo haprachim kulam)שלישיית גשר הירקון (Yarkon Bridge Trio)
HungarianHova tűnt a sok virág? Mária Mezei, Péter Gerendás, Erzsi Kovács, Éva Csepregi
IcelandicHvert er farið blómið blátt? Elly Vilhjálms & Ragnar Bjarnason
IrishCá bhfuil siad uainn, scoth na mbláth? Feargal Ó Béarra
ItalianDove andranno i nostri fiori? Patty Pravo
JapaneseHana wa doko e itta?Kiyoshiro Imawano
PolishGdzie są kwiaty z tamtych lat? Sława Przybylska
PortuguesePara onde foram todas as flores Jarmila Ferreira Martins
RomanianUnde au dispărut toate florileAlexandru Constantinescu
RussianГде цветы, дай мне ответ? (Gde cvety, day mne otvet?) Oleg Nesterov, Masha Makarova
RussianТы скажи мне, где цветы (Ty skazhi mne, gde tsvety) Zhanna Bichevskaya
SlovenianKam so šle vse rožice Tomaž Domicelj
Spanish¿Dónde están las flores? Rolando Alarcón, Bárbara y Dick, Los Holiday's, Jorge Hernan
SwedishInga blommor finns det mer Lars Lönndahl
TurkishSöyle Çiçekler nerde? Oğuz Tarihmen
UkrainianДе всі квіти, розкажи (De vsi kvity, rozkazhy) Maria Burmaka
UkrainianКвіти де? Kvity De?Yana Zavarzina

Grammy Hall of Fame

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 recordedTitleGenreLabelYear inducted
1964"Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"Folk (single)Columbia2002

See also

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References

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Bibliography