Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

For the 2008 documentary, see Where Have All the Flowers Gone? (film).

1960 release on The Rainbow Quest LP, Folkways, FA 2454, by Pete Seeger.

"Where Have All The Flowers Gone?"
Music by	Pete Seeger
Lyrics by	Pete Seeger and Joe Hickerson
Language	English

"Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" (1961) is a folk song. The first three verses were written by Pete Seeger in 1955, and published in Sing Out! magazine. Additional verses were added by Joe Hickerson in May 1960, 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 the "Top 20 Political Songs".

Composition

Seeger found inspiration for the song in October 1955, while on a plane bound for a concert in Ohio. 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 Cossacks folk song "Tovchu, tovchu mak", referenced in the Mikhail Sholokhov novel And Quiet Flows the Don (1934), which Seeger had read "at least a year or two before".

Seeger adapted it to a tune, possibly a pre-existing folk song. With only three verses, he recorded it once in a medley on The Rainbow Quest album (Folkways LP FA 2454) released in July, 1960 and forgot about it. Joe Hickerson added verses four and five, and a repeat of verse one, in May 1960 in Bloomington.

The original Koloda Duda was published in Sing Out! in 1962. In 2010, the New Statesman listed it as one of the "Top 20 Political Songs".

The song appeared on the 1967 compilation album Pete Seeger's Greatest Hits released by Columbia Records as CS 9416.

Versions

• 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. Their single, with "O Ken Karanga" as the A-side and the hit "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" the B-side, reached #21 in the 1962 Billboard Hot 100 chart.
• Peter, Paul and Mary included the song on their eponymous debut album (which spent five weeks as the #1 album in the country) in 1962.
• Marlene Dietrich performed this song in English, French and German. The song was first performed in French (as "Qui peut dire où vont les fleurs?") by Marlene in 1962 at a UNICEF concert. She also recorded the song in English and in German, the latter titled "Sag' mir, wo die Blumen sind", with lyrics translated by Max Colpet. She performed the German version on a tour of Israel, where she was warmly received; she was the first person to break the taboo of using German publicly in Israel since WWII.
• Dalida also recorded the song in French as "Que sont devenues les fleurs?", in 1962 (Les Années Barclay, vol. 5, 1962).
• Jaap Fischer recorded the song in Dutch as "Zeg me waar de bloemen zijn" (single, B side of "Jan Soldaat",1963).
• The Searchers released their version on the album Meet The Searchers, released June 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.
• Vera Lynn recorded the song as the eleventh 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.
• Joan Baez included the number on her 1965 album Farewell Angelina.
• Johnny Rivers had a 1965 top 40 hit in the US with a folk rock version, reaching #26 on the Billboard Hot 100.
• Harry Belafonte has made one recording of it at a benefit concert in Stockholm, Sweden, 1966 on the album BEL-1.
• Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs included the song on their 1968 album Changin' Times.
• Jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery recorded an instrumental version in his trademark style on the 1968 LP Road Song
• In 1969, Rufus Harley recorded a jazz instrumental version on his trademark bagpipes, but the track was never commercially released until it was included in his posthumously released limited edition collection Courage - The Atlantic Recordings in 2006.
• American R&B band Earth, Wind & Fire covered the song on the 1972 album Last Days and Time.
• Hannes Wader recorded a German version as the final track for his 1982 album Daß nichts bleibt wie es war.
• A Russian version of the song was created in 1998 by Oleg Nesterov, a lead singer of Megapolis, and later performed in duet with Masha Makarova (Masha I Medvedi) in a music video.
• Olivia Newton-John recorded the song on her 2004 album Indigo: Women of Song.
• Country singer Dolly Parton has also recorded a rendition of the song, on her 2005 album Those Were the Days.
• Chris de Burgh has recorded a new version which is featured on his 2008 album Footsteps.^{[citation needed]}
• The song was sung at the funeral of Harry Patch, the last British soldier of the First World War, in Wells Cathedral on August 9, 2009.
• The Folkswingers recorded an instrumental version of the song for their second album 12 String Guitar! Vol. 2.
• A Polish version was sung by Sława Przybylska (Polish title: "Gdzie są kwiaty z tamtych lat?")
• A Czech version of the song was also created and recorded by several popular artists, such as Judita Čeřovská.
• A Chinese version with heavily modified text and melody based on the English version was recorded by 范玮琪.
• A Scottish pop singer and songwriter Jimmy Sommerville made a piano version of the song on his 2009 album "Suddenly Last Summer"
• A Croatian folk band Zlatni Dukati played this song during the war in their homeland in 1990's under the title "Iznad polja makova" ("Above the fields of poppy").
• U2 performed a part of the song in concert on their 2011 U.S. U2 360° Tour.

Version	Title	Artist
English	Where have all the flowers gone?	Pete Seeger, The Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary
German	Sag mir, wo die Blumen sind	Marlene Dietrich, Juliane Werding, Nana Mouskouri, Joan Baez
Spanish	¿Dónde están las flores?	Rolando Alarcón
Czech	Řekni, kde ty kytky jsou	Judita Čeřovská
Croatian	Kamo je cvijeće otišlo?	Monia Verardi
Russian	Где цветы, дай мне ответ? Gde cvety, day mne otvet?	Oleg Nesterov, Masha Makarova
Dutch	Zeg me waar de bloemen zijn	Jaap Fischer
French	Que sont devenues les fleurs?	Dalida
Polish	Gdzie są kwiaty z tamtych lat?	Sława Przybylska
Turkish	Söyle Çiçekler nerde?	Oğuz Tarihmen
Finnish	Minne kukat kadonneet	Kukonpojat
Hebrew	איפה הפרחים כולם Eifo Haprachim Kulam	שלישיית גשר הירקון (Gesher Hayarkon Threesome)
Irish	Cá bhfuil siad uainn, scoth na mbláth?	Feargal Ó Béarra
Hungarian	Hova tünt a sok virág?	Gerendás Péter
Italian	Dove andranno i nostri fiori?	Patty Pravo
Portuguese	Para onde foram todas as flores	Jarmila Ferreira Martins
Romanian	Unde au dispărut toate florile	Alexandru Constantinescu
Russian	Ты скажи мне, где цветы	Zhanna Bichevskaya
Slovenian	Kam so šle vse rožice	Tomaž Domicelj
Estonian	Kuhu küll kõik lilled jäid	Lindpriid
Japanese	花はどこへ行った? Hana wa doko e itta?	Kiyoshiro Imawano
Chinese	那些花儿	Fan Fan

Bibliography

• Seeger, Pete; Blood, Peter (1993) (book). Where have all the flowers gone : a singer's stories, songs, seeds, robberies (Biography). Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: Sing Out!. pp. 166–169. ISBN 9781881322016. OCLC 28150656.