Intro to 1960s Music - The Byrds Throughout the years in and just surrounding the 1960s, there was a significant birth of race revolutions, drugs, feminism, war, and peace. In short, a theme of counter culture invaded the time period. These new movements had a significant influence on the music of the day, and contributed to the rapid spread of these counter cultural ideas across the nation. The 1965 hit, “Turn! Turn! Turn!”, recorded by The Byrds, proved to be no different. This song rocked the charts and became The Byrds second number one hit, just following “Mr. Tambourine Man”. Though this version of “Turn! Turn! Turn!” is the recording most popularly known among people then and today, this song was actually first written and performed by Pete Seeger - a folk style, singer-songwriter best known for his songs about, and political activism in, anti-war movements, civil rights movements, and environmental preservation. Seeger quickly became known as one who aspired to write the music that was the voice and the cry of the people. The Byrds’ cover of his song became just that. In the heat of the Vietnam war in the mid 1960s, The Byrds’ recording of “Turn! Turn! Turn!” put a contagious melody and compelling lyrics to the people’s outcry for peace around the nation by rhetorically appealing to ethics, sensitive emotions of the day, and the logical concept of seasons turning.
Analysis of Lyrics in"Turn! Turn! Turn!" - A Cry for Peace The lyrics to “Turn! Turn! Turn!” are poetic and thematic as they come directly from a passage in TheBible. Pete Seeger essentially quoted the entire first eight verses of the third chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes, making only a few rearrangements and one line rewrite to make his main point and round out the end of the song. Considering that this song comes essentially in every respect from The Bible, it contributes a thorough appeal to ethics. The Bible, though it is a book about something so much more significant than just how to live, it unfortunately tends to often only be considered as a guide to righteous or “good” living, but it regardless contributes a sense of ethics to this song. Seeger alluding to, or rather directly quoting, TheBible here as an out cry for peace greatly contributes to the credibility of the song because of the very source of the lyrics. The passages of scripture are well known by some, and just thought of by others, as a place where they can seek refuge and peace for their restless hearts, in the very promises of God. This allusion that is woven into this song is quite significant as the people of America are likely longing for that very peace and refuge from the War in Vietnam. The words of scripture uniquely enhance the message for peace woven into this tune, and have a deep effect on the how it could possibly be received by the listeners. While the appeal to ethics is significant in “Turn! Turn! Turn!” through its liberal borrowing from The Bible, its appeal to emotion through the combination of language and musical elements further reveals the desperate cry for peace.
Given the tense time period and the rollercoaster of emotions that the war in Vietnam stirred among the American people, this song embodies a relaxed tempo and melody, paired with gentle, poetic lyrics that together peacefully explode into this deep reservoir of emotions that make evident the desperation of the people during that time. The opening refrain sets the melody for majority of the song as the lyrics state, “To everything (turn, turn, turn) / There is a season (turn, turn, turn) / And a time to every purpose under heaven.” The quote from Ecclesiastes chapter three tied together with this repetitive, melodically falling echo of “turn, turn, turn” throughout the song gives the feeling of change, newness, or quite literally, of turning. The stanzas of examples of seasons that change, like “A time to be born, a time to die / A time to plant, a time to reap...”, begin at a particular octave, but they are raised higher once the last line of the stanza is reached, and then slowly fall back down into the echoing cycle of “(turn, turn, turn)”. The musical elements of this song completely support the emotional cry for peace so evident in the lyrics. The lyrical evidence of this is perhaps best seen in the last line of the hit that Seeger rewrote in order to make the cry for peace all the more prominent and moving in saying “A time for peace, I swear it’s not too late.” Americans who were anti-war at the time were desperate for an anthem that called for peace and that could soak into the souls of those who heard it. The Byrds use these melodies and notes to contribute a feeling to this song, and move their listeners in a way that words alone could not, but the combination of both the elements of music and the poetic lyrics make this song exceptionally successful. This is likely the very reason “Turn! turn! Turn!” found the number one hit charts so quickly. Though appeals to ethics and emotion are so significant to the meaning and message of this song, these appeals are almost meaningless if they do not make sense to those who hear them. Seeger’s use of logic throughout the scripting of the lyrics of this song further supports the argument of the cry for peace. As noted earlier, this song quotes the passage in Ecclesiastes chapter three which is composed of eight verses - a poem - that give examples of what there is a time for. These verses list fourteen different topics that have seasons, mentioning things like being born and dying, planting and harvesting, killing and healing, weeping and laughing, and probably most significant to this particular song, war and peace. These are all processes or cycles that make logical sense. It makes sense to be born and then to die; it makes logical sense to plant and then to pull up the harvest from that which was planted; it makes sense to have times where there is weeping and others when there is laughing and all of these other examples because that has likely happened to the majority of human beings, if not all. This idea of seasons is something we can comprehend because it is something we have experienced. There is logical sense in there being a starting place for something, change occurring, and then it resolving to its final state. Therefore, when Seeger writes that there is “a time for war”, and, “a time for peace”, it naturally implies that war has its own time, but it resolves into a time of peace after the war. This is the very thing that the people of America are proclaiming in this war protest song are. Seeger very much so was the voice and cry of America at the time, and the Byrds spread this song around the nation like a wild fire. It was a plea that made sense and could help their desire be expressed all the more clearly. The logical appeal throughout “Turn! Turn! Turn!” was a significant aspect that supported the people’s cry for peace in the mid 1960s.
Final Outcome and Present Day Impact The Byrds’ cover of “Turn! Turn! Turn!” written by Pete Seeger was a popular hit of the 1960s that embodied the cry of the people through the appeal to ethics, emotion, and logic. The roots of scripture contribute significant credibility to the song, while also appealing to some emotion and logic. The lyrics so clearly express a desperate longing for a season of war to change to a season of peace, and grabs the emotions of listeners, especially with the moving melody throughout the song. The idea of the changing of seasons makes logical sense, and thus the American people are largely saying that the transition into a time of peace makes sense right now; that is the very thing that they were longing for, that is what they wanted. The lyrics and message of this song so thoroughly remind me of the present day work of singer/songwriter, Mat Kearney, in his song “Let it Rain.” The ending of the second verse slows, as it builds into the chorus that booms, “Let it rain.” Mat writes, “There's a time meant for war, there's a time meant to pray / There's a time / there's a time / there's a time / there's a time / when all you can say is... let it rain.” The desire for peace is the message that the Byrds helped the American people spread as they sang “Turn! Turn! Turn!” all across the nation, and this proclamation was so loud and emphatic that it is still woven in the music of today.
Works Cited
Mat Kearney. “Let it Rain”, Just Kids, Republic Records, 2015, youtube.com, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=C63uUdtfNvw The Byrds. “Turn! Turn! Turn!” Turn! Turn! Turn!, Columbia Records, 1965, youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4ga_M5Zdn4