Where Have All The Flowers Gone?

by

The Kingston Trio

Album: Best Of The Kingston Trio      Released: 1962

US Chart: 21     

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Pete Seeger wrote this song as a call for peace. He was inspired by Mikhail Sholokhov's novel And Quiet Flows the Don, which is about Czarist Russia. In a 1988 interview with Paul Zollo, Seeger explained: "In one of the early chapters, it describes the Cossack soldiers galloping off to join the Czar's army. And they're singing: '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. Gallop, gallop, gallop, wheeeee!' I stuck the words in my pocket. A year or two or three went by and I never had time to look up the original. Meanwhile, I'm sitting in a plane, kind of dozing. And all of a sudden came a line I had thought about five years earlier: 'long time passing.' I thought that those three words sang well. All of a sudden I fitted the two together, along with the intellectual's perennial complaining, 'When will we ever learn?'" (this appears in Zollo's book Songwriters On Songwriting)

Seeger's lyrics show how war and suffering can by cyclical in nature: girls pick flowers, men pick girls, men go to war and fill graves with their dead which get covered with flowers. (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)

The folk group Peter, Paul And Mary began playing this, and when The Kinston Trio saw them perform it in concert, they recorded it the next day.

Movie star Marlene Dietrich recorded a German version. In 1965, Johnny Rivers hit #26 with his cover. (thanks, Edward Pearce - Ashford, Kent, England, for above 3)

Peter, Paul And Mary re-recorded this in 1997 for a public service announcement featuring guns, grieving families, deceased kids, and white coffins. It was renamed "Where Have All The Children Gone," and this ad of the same name was from the US Department of Justice, the National Crime Prevention Council, and the Ad Council. (thanks, Tiffany - Dover, FL)

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Comments:

A poignant, powerful voice for peace. Though strictly it speaks of the formal kind of war of nations and armies, Seeger's point is clearly beyond that, to the personal warfare within us all. In performance Seeger has freely varied from "they every learn" to both "we" and "you." I believe the canonical lyrics are "they" throughout. Though strong enough on its face, the real strength lies in the verses made continuous by linking each to the next, and then, most particularly, the connection from the final verse as you'll hear, making the point that it's not just the tragedy of anger and warfare, but the frustrating endlessness of it, the same folly repeated from one generation to the next, with the singer's voice crying, throughout, when will they ever learn? When will we?
- Ray Simard, Lakeside, CA

hmmm i like chocolate it is good. it is a good song. i think it is sad
- bobby, salem, NJ

it is a good song njdshaJKCHBDKPOOPYBDYCSGCYDUGYDGHSJ DHSAIGYUAGCHHICODY
- bobby, salem, NJ

vhtgvuttghkfjpoopyfuidlg it is a nice song it is cool fhdsiaghijhicody
- bobby, salem, NJ

The song presented and discussed here is missing the writer credit for Joe Hickerson, the creator of verses 4 and 5 when he was a camp counselor and the person who repeated the first verse at the end to bring out the circularity of the events.
- David, Chicago, IL

A good enough cover I guess, but Pete Seeger's version is so much more powerful. The KT also changed the last line (or someone did) from "when will we ever learn" to "when will they ever learn" which really decreases the impact.
- Heather, Los Angeles, CA

I love how every stanza is connected the one preceding--to me it's saying how everything is connected (that might just be a small part of the actual song, but it's still cool)
- Ryan, Poway, CA

I heard that Peter, Paul, and Mary sing this in a 1997 Ad Council ad (with the NCPC, of course) and the song was dubbed as Where Have All the Children Gone.
- Tiffany, Dover, FL

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