![]() ![]() I liked the Byrds’ record very much, incidentally. And I got a letter from him the next week that said, ‘Wonderful! Just what I’m looking for.’ Within two months he’d sold it to the Limelighters and then to the Byrds. This is the only kind of song I know how to write.’ I pulled out this slip of paper in my pocket and improvised a melody to it in 15 minutes and I sent it to him. ![]() I sat down with a tape recorder and said, ‘I can’t write the kind of songs you want. I call it the greatest book of folklore ever given, not that there isn’t a lot of wisdom in it and you can trace the history of people poetically.” He added: “I got a letter from my publisher, and he says, ‘Pete, I can’t sell these protest songs you write,’ and I was angry. I leaf through it occasionally and I’m amazed by the foolishness at times and the wisdom at other times. In 1988 Paul Zollo interviewed Pete Seeger who explained, “I don’t read the Bible that often. They were altered slightly by Seeger who also added six words of his own – I swear it’s not too late – and paired with his music to make the song. The music was written by the influential protest folk singer Pete Seeger in 1959, but its lyrics go way back and are taken from a passage from the book of Ecclesiastes (3:1-8) in The Bible. We do know, however, that Mike Oldfield’s 1975 Christmas hit In Dulci Jubilo originates from the German mystic Heinrich Seuse around 1328, but it’s likely that the oldest song was a hit exactly 10 years before Mike Oldfield and comes courtesy of the Byrds with their 1965 hit Turn Turn Turn (To Everything There Is A Season). ![]() The lines are open to myriad interpretations, but Seeger's song presents them as a plea for world peace because of the closing line: "a time for peace, I swear it's not too late." This line and the title phrase "Turn! Turn! Turn!" are the only parts of the lyric written by Seeger himself.It is often asked what is the oldest recording to make the UK chart and there is no real definitive answer. The Biblical text posits there being a time and place for all things: birth and death, killing and healing, sorrow and laughter, war and peace, and so on. To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven:Ī time to be born, and a time to die a time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted Ī time to kill, and a time to heal a time to break down, and a time to build up Ī time to weep, and a time to laugh a time to mourn, and a time to dance Ī time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together Ī time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing Ī time to gain that which is to get, and a time to lose a time to keep, and a time to cast away Ī time to rend, and a time to sew a time to keep silence, and a time to speak Ī time of love, and a time of hate a time of war, and a time of peace. Ecclesiastes is traditionally ascribed to King Solomon who would have written it in the 10th century BC, but believed by a significant group of biblical scholars to date much later, up to the third century BC. The lyrics are taken almost verbatim from the book of Ecclesiastes, as found in the King James Version (1611) of the Bible, (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) though the sequence of the words was rearranged for the song. In Canada, it reached number 3 on November 29, 1965, and also peaked at number 26 on the UK Singles Chart. chart at number 80 on October 23, 1965, before reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on December 4, 1965. The song became an international hit in late 1965 when it was adopted by the American folk-rock group the Byrds. The song was originally released in 1962 as "To Everything, There Is a Season" on folk group the Limeliters' album Folk Matinee, and then some months later on Seeger's own The Bitter and the Sweet. The lyrics – except for the title, which is repeated throughout the song, and the final two lines – consist of the first eight verses of the third chapter of the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes. ![]() (To Everything There Is a Season)", is a song written by Pete Seeger in the late 1950s and first recorded in 1959. ![]()
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