Where Have All the Flowers Gone

DESCRIPTION: "Where have all the flowers gone? Long time passing. W ere have all the flowers gone? Long time ago. Where have all the flowers gone? The girls have picked them ev'ry one." The girls have gone for young men. The young men are gone for soldiers...
AUTHOR: Pete Seeger, adapted by Joe Hickerson, based on lyrics in Mikhail Sholokhov's "And Quiet Flows the Don"
EARLIEST DATE: 1961 (copyright), but see NOTES
KEYWORDS: love courting flowers death campsong | circular
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, pp. 333, 391, 538, 548, 551, 554, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" (notes only)
DT, WHERFLWR*
ADDITIONAL: Pete Seeger, _The Bells of Rhymney_, Oak Publications, 1964, p. 82, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" (1 text, 1 tune, Seeger's original)
Pete Seeger, _Where Have All the Flowers Gone: A Musical Autobiography_, edited by Peter Blood, Sing Out Publications, 1993, 1997, pp. 166-169. "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" (2 texts, Seeger's original and the adapted version, 2 tunes, plus Marlene Dietrich's German text and the transliterated text and tune of "Koloda Duda")
RECORDINGS:
Pete Seeger, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" (on PeteSeeger30)
SAME TUNE:
Where Have All the Gypsies Gone (Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, p. 333)
NOTES [696 words]: I honestly have no idea how to properly index this, the song is so widespread. I haven't even tried to index all the Seeger recordings, let alone the other versions and printings! You can surely find a copy.
In case you don't know, I will summarize the history, but you can get better versions of the story in Pete Seeger's various books; there is also a Wikipedia article.
Seeger's own first written description seems to be that on p. 82 of Seeger-Bells:
In [Mikhail] Sholokhov's novel, And Quiet Flows the Don, I came across three lines of an old Ukrainian folk song. After a year, I gave up the search for the original (it's been located since). Recorded it, then forgot about it, and thought it would never be heard from again. But a song is like a child. Once it gets out in the world on its own, it often surprises its parent."
Seeger published that statement in 1964. The text Seeger printed then was his own original three-verse version.
The Ukrainian song is "Koloda Duda" (Seeger-Flowers, p. 13; on p. 168 it says that A. L. Lloyd found it, which perhaps makes it a little dubious). Seeger had read three verses and scribbled down the essence: "Where are the flowers? The girls have picked them. Where are the girls? They've taken husbands. Where are the men? They're all in the army" (Seeger-Flowers, p. 166). As Seeger said, he wanted to find the song, but couldn't.
This was a hard time for Seeger, because of the blacklist. He was on his way to a gig at Oberlin College when he pulled out those notes. He brought in another phrase that had been floating around his head, "Long time passing." He set a tune that turned out to be based on a variant, major key, lumberjack version of "Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill" (Dunaway, p. 186) -- not quite the tune you usually hear, but fairly close. It took him twenty minutes to put together the original three-verse version. He recorded it for Folkways (in a medley, because it was so short, according to Dunaway, p. 187) -- and it went nowhere. He stopped singing it himself after a year (Seeger-Flowers, p. 166).
There is minor disagreement about what happened next. Somehow, the song came to Joe Hickerson. Dunaway, p. 187, says that Seeger met Hickerson at Camp Woodland and taught it to him. I seem to recall Hickerson saying that he learned it from Seeger's recording. Another account says that Hickerson had heard it at Oberlin. In any case, he learned it, folk processed it a little, added the two verses to make it circular, and taught it to the kids at the camp where he was a counselor. They folk processed it a little more. (This was probably in 1960. It is thus one of the truest camp songs there is: The kids made it themselves!). Peter, Paul and Mary learned it from Hickerson, and sang it from the beginning of their careers. The Kingston Trio got it from them. (Seeger-Flowers, p. 167).
Initially the Kingston Trio claimed it themselves, because Seeger hadn't done his work to copyright it. But Dave Guard, once he heard from Seeger, did the morally right thing and gave it back to Seeger (Seeger-Flowers, p. 167).
Obviously the Kingston Trio had recorded it. Then Joan Baez. And Peter, Paul and Mary. And Harry Belafonte. And the Brothers Four. Even Vera Lyinn! And a whole bunch of pop performers whom I've never heard of. Marlene Dietrich's German version was a sensation. (Ironically, Dietrich allegedly hated the song didn't want to sing it, according to her daughter: "All that toodle, toodle, toodle about where flowers have gone -- it never ends! It's only good when the girls pick them!" -- Riva, p. 638. Maria Riva, the daughter, claims to have talked her into singing it. But the daughter, although she worked with her mother most of her life, definitely had a love/hate relationship with Dietrich and may have exaggerated a bit.)
Wikipedia lists versions in thirty languages. It's in the Grammy Hall of Fame. And, despite all that, I'd even say it's a pretty good song!
I read in one or another of Seeger's books that Seeger gave 40% of the royalties to Joe Hickerson.
I find myself wondering, given Vladimir Putin's 2022 war on Ukraine, if the Ukrainians have dusted off the original yet. - RBW
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