Talk:Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

Johnny Rivers Danish version

Johnny Rivers: Where have all the flowers gone / Catch the wind 45 1965 Liberty Records LIB 12022 Folk Rock American Made in Denmark by Skandinavisk Grammophon Aktieselskab. Not in Bibliotek.dk Holger Terp, editor, the Danish Peace Academy

Johnny Rivers citation

2009-09-09 Don't know how you want to cite this, since I only know MLA and Chicago, but the Johnny Rivers version spent 4 weeks in the Billboard Top 40, reaching #26. It was Imperial single 66133 (Whitburn 386).
Whitburn, Joel. The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits. 5th ed. Rev. and enlarged. New York: Billboard-Watson, 1992. ISBN 0-8230-8280-6.
Signed, T. Abney (Google "abney" if you don't believe I'm a real person.)—Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.130.158.18 (talk) 02:06, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

The Polish version has been performed by Slava Przybylska. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.76.37.134 (talk) 21:07, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Ukraine

I added this to WikiProject Ukraine. Maybe someone there can give info on the Ukrainian folk song? Pustelnik 00:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

It is not Ukrainian folk song, it is a lullaby of Don Cossacks (which are close but not belonging to Ukrainian people). Various versions of this lullaby were possibly widespread among East Slavic nations (including e.g. Belarus), but, since the adoption was from "Quiet Don" which describes a Russian area, it would be more correctly to attribute it to Russia. --Yms (talk) 06:40, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Massive Attack

• In Massive Attacks "Risingson" there is a line that goes "Where have all those flowers gone". Don't know if it can be counted as a reference.

{{cleanup}} tag explained

• The article makes no pretense towards either a neutral point of view for example, addressing Pete Seeger as just "Pete" as a kind of buddy-buddy way of looking at him and his work. (Can't say I'm not a fan, exactly, but still). Not very encyclopedic...
• Lacking some pertinent facts... Why were Arthur Miller and Peter Seeger tried for contempt of court? Why was the House of Representatives officially interested in their activities? (Yes, I know it for HUAC and all that jazz about Communism and McCarthyism, but the article doesn't say so. If the article was the sole source of knowledge, I could suppose Miller and Seeger could have been appearing for a tribute to Peter Seeger's Uncle, Alan Seeger or perhaps to testify in front of the subcommitee in charge of Casinos Bureau of Indian Affairs as part of the Committee of Mining and Lumber interests Department of the Interior.
  • Also, if the song was written in Ukraine... why are the lyrics on the page in German? Wouldn't they be in Ukranian or possibly Russian? V. Joe 07:48, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

The novel was originally written in Russian. Pustelnik 00:24, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

• In France, the song was translated by René Rouzaud and Francis Lemarque (Où vont les fleurs ?), and performed by Jacqueline François (1965), Eva (1969) and Lemarque himself.
• Seeger appeared on the radio/tv program Democracy Now! on July, 4 2007. During the interview he tells the story of this song. Link: http://ia341233.us.archive.org/3/items/dn2007-0704/dn2007-0704-1_64kb.mp3

"Drill Ye Tarriers" As Source For The Melody

Unless someone can come up with a WP:RS for this, it cannot remain in the article. "Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill" was a copyrighted song published in 1888 - as such, it has a single tune and not variants as traditional/Child ballads do. Here's the melody:

http://www.contemplator.com/tunebook/midimusic/drillye.mid

Here's a MIDI of "Flowers":

http://www.wtv-zone.com/limeylady/flowers.html

There is no structural, chordal,or harmonic similarity between the two.

If Pete Seeger himself ever said that DYT was the basis for "Flowers" - that needs to be sourced - but if it's a recent recounting it is, with all due respect, potentially suspect. Seeger's comment that appeared in the recent book about him and is quoted in this article about the Kingston Trio trying to copyright the song is completely untrue, and provably so. I'll be addressing that error when I have appropriate sources lined up - to wit, Seeger says that he called Dave Guard of the KT who agreed to list the copyright as Seeger's only after Pete called him. However -

The KT that heard "Flowers" in 1961 from the then-unknown Peter, Paul and Mary at Boston's Storyville did not include Guard, who had left the group in June of that year, was living in Australia at the time (Seeger later stayed at Guard's Australian home while on tour there), and had been replaced by John Stewart, who was on the recording. All of Capitol's pressings of both the single hit record and the album on which it appeared attribute the copyright to Seeger. Seeger at a distance of 45 years may well have been confusing the "Flowers" song with any of a number of other Kingston Trio songs on which Guard and his bandmates claimed composition credits but which were actually under copyright to someone else, including a few that had been recorded by Seeger's The Weavers - but "Flowers" was not one of these. Sensei48 (talk) 06:07, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Is this a folk song?

I thought a folk song was a song whose author was unknown. By that criterion this is not a folk song. It sounds like a folk song because--like many folk songs--it's often sung to the music of a guitar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.73.31.50 (talk) 20:35, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

As Big Bill Broonzy once said, "All songs are folk songs - I never heard no horse sing."128.69.94.112 (talk) 07:49, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Confusing section

This section states "These lines were taken from the traditional Ukrainian folk song "Tovchu, tovchu mak"" and then goes on to say "The original 'Koloda Duda' was published in Sing Out! in 1962." Are these two the same song? If not what is the relevance of each of them to Where Have All the Flowers Gone? Mighty Antar (talk) 23:21, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

The Russian original

The following is the lullaby song from "Quiet flows the Don" (Book 1, Chapter 3):

  - Колода-дуда,
  Иде ж ты была?
  - Коней стерегла.
  - Чего выстерегла?
  - Коня с седлом,
  С золотым махром...
  - А иде ж твой конь?
  - За воротами стоит,
  - А иде ж ворота?
  - Вода унесла.
   - А иде ж гуси?
  - В камыш ушли.
  - А иде ж камыш?
  - Девки выжали.
  - А иде ж девки?
  - Девки замуж ушли.
  - А иде ж казаки?
  - На войну пошли...

It does not mention any flowers! It mentions reed! The translation of the respective lines:

- And where are the geese?
- Gone into the reed.
- And where is the reed?
- The girls have gathered it.
- And where are the girls?
- They have married.
- And where are the Cossacks?
- Gone to the war...

It is a great song of Peet Seager and it is interesting how the Russian culture influenced the American in this case. Olegwiki (talk) 20:47, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Song origins

In fact, there are many songs with somewhat similar narrative. There is a Russian (Don Cossacks') one, Koloda-Duda, cited from "Quiet flow of Don":

- Колода-дуда,
Иде ж ты была?
- Коней стерегла.
- Чего выстерегла?
- Коня с седлом,
С золотым махром...

- А иде ж твой конь?
- За воротами стоит,
- А иде ж ворота?
- Вода унесла.

- А иде ж гуси?
- В камыш ушли.
- А иде ж камыш?    // And where is that cane?
- Девки выжали.     // Girls reaped it
- А иде ж девки?    // And where are the girls?
- Девки замуж ушли. // Girls have gone for husbands
- А иде ж казаки? // And where are cossacks (in the meaning of men)
- На войну пошли... // Gone for the war

Also, there is an Ukrainian one, "Tovchu mak":

Товчу, товчу мак.
Підступає дяк.
Чому, дяче, плачеш?
Мачуха била, їсти не давала.
А дала лиш миш.
А де ж тая миш?
Побігла під піч.
А де ж тая піч?
Вода затопила.
А де ж та вода?
Воли попили. 
А де ж ті воли?
Коршун похапав.
А де ж той коршун?
Полетів за море.
А де ж тоє море?   // And where is that sea?
Квітками поросло.  // Overgrowned with flowers
А де ж тії квітки? // And where are those flowers?
Дівки порвали.     // Girls have picked them
А де ж тії дівки?  // Ahd where are those girls?
Хлопці побрали.    // Lads have taken them
А де ж тії хлопці? // And where those lads?
Пішли на війну.    // Gone for the war
А де ж та війна?   // And where is that war?

Although the latter one is closer to Seeger's version (flowers vs. cane), he never mentioned it (as far as I know), yet the story on the "Quite flow of Don" is widely known. Can't it be both, just intermixed in his head, as he was eager collector of folk music of the world? Anyway, there is no "Tovchu mak" song mentioned in the "Quiet flow of Don" as the article says at the moment.

Also, neither of songs' tune resembles one of the "Where have all the flowers gone", so, Sieger didn't adapt it, like article says at the moment.128.69.94.112 (talk) 06:58, 26 December 2014 (UTC)