Where Have All the Flowers Gone?


"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 and published the first three verses in Sing Out! magazine. Additional verses were added in May 1960 by Joe Hickerson, who turned it into a circular song.
Its rhetorical "where?" and meditation on death place the song in the ubi sunt tradition. In 2010, the New Statesman listed it as one of its selections of the "Top 20 Political Songs".
The 1962 album version of the song was released as part of the Columbia Records Hall of Fame 45 single series in 1965 as 13–33088. The recording of the song by Pete Seeger was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002 in the Folk category with the release year given as 1964 as a Columbia Records single.

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 that would hire him during the McCarthy era. 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." These lines were taken from the traditional Cossack folk-song "Koloda-Duda", referenced in the Mikhail Sholokhov novel And Quiet Flows the Don, 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.
He recorded and released a version with three verses on The Rainbow Quest album in July 1960. Later, Joe Hickerson added two more verses with a recapitulation of the first in May 1960 in Bloomington, Indiana.
Seeger published the song in Sing Out in 1962 as a copyrighted composition.
The 1962 recording of the song appeared on the compilation album Pete Seeger's Greatest Hits released by Columbia Records as CS 9416.
Pete Seeger's recording from the Columbia album The Bitter and the Sweet, 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.

Versions

1961−1964

  • The Kingston Trio recorded the song in 1961. Believing it to be a traditional song, they claimed authorship, although upon notice from Seeger, they had their name removed and credited Seeger and Hickerson. Seeger acknowledged their success with this song.
  • The Landsmen released the song in 1961 as a 45 rpm single on Arvee.
  • Peter, Paul and Mary included the song on their eponymous debut album in 1962.
  • Marlene Dietrich performed the song in English, French, and German. The song was first performed in French by Dietrich in 1962 at a UNICEF concert and released on the EP "Marlène" in July 1962. Her German rendition was titled "Sag mir, wo die Blumen sind", with lyrics translated by Max Colpet, which she performed on a tour of Israel, where she was warmly received. Dietrich was the first performer to break the taboo of publicly using the German language in Israel since the Second World War. The single "Sag Mir, Wo Die Blumen Sind" was released in Germany in September 1962. The UK music weekly Record Mirror published a highly favourable review of the German-language version in August 1963. It praised Dietrich's performance, noting that while she delivered it in her "curious, staccato style," she nonetheless managed to extract "the maximum warmth and emotion" from the song. In March 1964, Dietrich's English-language version of the song was released in the US and in the UK.
  • Dalida, an Italian-French singer, also recorded the song in French as "Que sont devenues les fleurs?", adapted by Guy Béart in 1962.
  • The Folkswingers recorded an instrumental version of the song for their second album 12 String Guitar! Vol. 2.
  • Jaap Fischer recorded the song in Dutch as "Zeg me waar de bloemen zijn".
  • Conny van den Bos recorded the song in Dutch "Waar zijn al die bloemen toch?", released 1963.
  • The Searchers released their version on the album Meet the Searchers, released in June 1963.
  • The Springfields featuring Dusty Springfield released a version in German in 1963.
  • Bobby Darin recorded the song on the Golden Folk Hits album on Capitol, 2007, which was released in November 1963.
  • Eddy Arnold and The Needmore Creek Singers recorded the song on October 9, 1963, and released it on the Folk Song Book album released in January 1964.
  • Erzsi Kovács, a Hungarian pop singer, recorded a version in Hungarian in 1964.
  • Heli Lääts, an Estonian concert singer, recorded a version in Estonian in 1964, with the title "Kuhu küll kõik lilled jäid?"
  • Vera Lynn recorded the song as the 11th cut on her 1964 album Among My Souvenirs.
  • The Brothers Four recorded the song on their 1964 LP More Big Folk Hits, Columbia Records, CL-2213.
  • The Four Seasons recorded the song on their 1964 Philips album Born to Wander, PHM 200 129.
  • Lars Lönndahl recorded the song in 1964 with Swedish lyrics Inga blommor finns det mer, translated in 1962 by Beppe Wolgers.

1965−1969

1970−1979

1980−1989

  • Yellow Magic Orchestra recorded the song in 1980 and released it in the 1999 compilation album YMO GO HOME!
  • Hannes Wader recorded a German version as the final track for his 1982 album Daß nichts bleibt wie es war.
  • City, a then-East German rock band formed in East Berlin in 1972, recorded a German-language version in their 1983 album Unter der Haut.
  • Bernie Sanders covered the song on his 1987 album We Shall Overcome.

1990−1999

2000−2009

2010−2019

  • Danish-German songwriter and entrepreneur Kirsten Hasberg, of Kassel, Germany, recorded a parody entitled "Sag, die Energiewende, wo ist sie geblieben?" about the German transition to renewable energies and "energy democracy".
  • Lara Veronin, a Russian-Taiwanese-American singer, recorded a version for the 2012 Taiwanese drama Alice in Wonder City.
  • German avant-garde group Einstürzende Neubauten recorded a German version of the song for their 2014 album Lament.
  • The Armistice Pals recorded a version in 2014 that was released as a commemoration of the 100th anniversary of World War One, and as a tribute to Pete Seeger, who had died earlier that year. The voice of Pete Seeger is heard in the recording along with that of his half-sister Peggy Seeger.

2020−present

  • Canadian singer-songwriter Pierre Lapointe recorded the German version for his 2022 album L'heure mauve.
  • Russian actress and director Renata Litvinova performed a recitative on Russian over Marlene Dietrich's singing as a background, which can be an act against the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022).
  • Greek singer-songwriter Vasiliki Nika recorded the Greek version. The video directed by Alexandros N. V. refers to the Kalavryta massacre.
  • Belarusian singer-songwriter and artist Lavon Volski recorded the version in Belarusian "Dzie kvietki?" in 2022. The video directed by Ihar Nazaranka contains drawings made by Lavon Volski himself.

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."