Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
"Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" is a folk song written by American singer-songwriter Pete Seeger in 1955. Inspired lyrically by the traditional Cossack folk song "Koloda-Duda", Seeger borrowed an Irish melody for the music, and published the first three verses in Sing Out! magazine. Additional verses were added in May 1960 by Joe Hickerson, 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".
Columbia Hall of Fame 45 rpm single release as 13-33088 featuring the November 1962 version
Peter Seeger was an American folk singer and social activist. He was a fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, and had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, notably their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene," which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. Members of the Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the 1960s, Seeger re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, counterculture, workers' rights, and environmental causes.
Seeger playing the banjo in 1955
Pete Seeger
Peter Seeger (on father's lap) with his father and mother, Charles and Constance Seeger and brothers on a camping trip (May 23, 1921)
Seeger in 1979