There’s a time for every purpose, but sometimes a purpose gets proposed before its season. In some cases it’s just a matter of turning over old records without flip sides.
Such is the case of a Pete Seeger demo of the song “Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season).” A one-sided vinyl acetate, which turn turn turns at 78 RPMs, of Seeger’s signature piece was discovered in a private collection,” according to Variety. The demo was recorded and pressed sometime around 1961. The rendition may be the earliest known recording of the song.
You can hear that version here:
You can listen to Seeger’s performance here:
Seeger turned to The Bible’s “Book of Ecclesiastes” in the Old Testament for the lyrics to “Turn! Turn! Turn!” He wrote the song in the late 1950s. According to interviews, Seeger says he wrote it in fifteen minutes because he was mad at his publisher. The first officially released rendition of the song was done by The Limeliters for their 1962 album Folk Matinee. They recorded it under the title “To Everything There Is a Season.” Seeger recorded a live version at New York City’s Bitter End, which was released on his The Bitter And The Sweet album.
McGuinn was a graduate of the Old Town School Of Folk Music in Chicago. He’d been a member of the Limeliters when they recorded their version, and was mentored by the folksinger Bob Gibson.
Backed by Burt Bacharach conducting a studio orchestra, Marlene Dietrich recorded a German translation of the song called “Für alles kommt die Zeit (Glaub’, Glaub)” in 1963. It was also recorded by Australian folk singer Gary Shearston for his 1964 album Songs of Our Time.
Further reading: Original Imagine Demo by John Lennon Surfaces
Culture Editor Tony Sokol cut his teeth on the wire services and also wrote and produced New York City’s Vampyr Theatre and the rock opera AssassiNation: We Killed JFK. Read more of his work here or find him on Twitter @tsokol.
