Turn! Turn! Turn!

Turn! Turn! Turn!

"Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There is a Season)", often abbreviated to "Turn! Turn! Turn!", is a song adapted entirely from the the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible (with the exception of the last line) and composed to music by Pete Seeger in the 1950s. Seeger waited until 1962 to record it, releasing the song on his album "The Bitter and The Sweet" on Columbia Records.

Lyrics and title

The lyrics are taken almost verbatim from the King James version of the Bible (Ecclesiastes 3, verses 1–8).

1 To every "thing there is" a season, and a time
to every purpose under the heaven:
2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time
to plant, and a time to pluck up "that which is"
planted;
3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to
break down, and a time to build up;
4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time
to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather
stones together; a time to embrace, and a time
to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to
keep, and a time to cast away;
7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to
keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of
war, and a time of peace.

The Biblical text posits there being a time and place for all things: laughter and sorrow, healing and killing, war and peace, and so on. The lines are open to myriad interpretations, but as a song they are commonly performed as a plea for world peace, with stress on the closing line: "a time for peace, "I swear it's not too late"," the latter phrase being the only part of the lyric written by Seeger himself.

The song is one of a few mainstream songs to set a large portion of scripture to music, other examples being The Melodians' "Rivers of Babylon", Sister Janet Mead's "The Lord's Prayer (Sister Janet Mead song)" and U2's ""40""

The song was published in illustrated book form by Simon & Schuster in September 2003, with an accompanying CD which contained both Seeger & The Byrds recordings of the song. (ISBN-10: 0689852355 & ISBN-13: 978-0689852350) Wendy Anderson Halperin created a set of detailed illustrations for each set of opposites which are reminiscent of mandalas. The book also includes the Ecclesiastes text from the King James version of the Bible.

Handwritten lyrics to the song were among the documents donated to New York University by the Communist Party USA in March 2007 [, was recorded for the single "Tremolo".
*Andy Sturmer, lead singer and songwriter of Jellyfish recorded a cover of the song for an unknown project.
* The trio Wilson Phillips covered the song on their 2004 album "California".

Notes

External links

* [http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=25&chapter=3&version=9 Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 King James Version]
* [http://www.springsteenlyrics.com/lyrics/t/turnturnturn.php Lyrics and info about the duet with Bruce Springsteen]


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