Seasons in the Sun

"Seasons in the Sun"
Single by Terry Jacks
from the album Seasons in the Sun
B-side	"Put the Bone In"
Released	December 1973
Format	7"
Recorded	1973
Genre	Pop
Length	3:24
Label	Bell
Writer(s)	Jacques Brel, Rod McKuen
Producer(s)	Terry Jacks
Terry Jacks singles chronology
"Seasons in the Sun" (1974) "If You Go Away" (1974)

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"Seasons in the Sun" is an English-language adaptation of the song "Le Moribond" by Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel^[1] with lyrics by American singer-poet Rod McKuen.^[2] It became a worldwide hit in 1974 for Canadian singer Terry Jacks and became a Christmas Number 1 in 1999 for Westlife. Jacks's version is one of the fewer than forty all-time singles to have sold 10 million copies worldwide.

Plot

The song is a dying protagonist's farewell to relatives and friends. The protagonist mentions how hard it will be to die now that the spring season has arrived (historically, spring is portrayed as the season of new life).

Original version

The original French-language song is a sardonic ballad, in which the speaker gives backhanded farewells to his adulterous wife and her lover and the priest he disagreed with while sarcastically expressing his wish that there should be singing and dancing when he is buried. Before Jacks popularized the song, earlier recordings had been released by The Kingston Trio with the first cover version of McKuen's translation in 1963 and the British band The Fortunes in 1968.

Terry Jacks version

Jacks's version was recorded in Vancouver in 1973 by Jacks and his wife at the time, Susan Jacks. They made the decision to record the song when the Beach Boys, who recorded a version with Terry Jacks producing, decided to abandon their recording.

Although prior English-language versions had attempted to retain the sarcastic tone of the original French song, Jacks opted to make it more sentimental. In each verse, the protagonist bids farewell to someone important in his life:

• The first verse refers to "a trusted friend" that he had known since he was "9 or 10". The original specifically names the friend as "Émile", which Jacks's versions does not.
• The second verse refers to the protagonist's father (who unsuccessfully tried to warn him of his lifestyle); this verse differed from the original as it was sung in a manner which downplayed the original's bitter tone of regret.
• The third verse refers to "Michelle, my little one" (implied to be his daughter, who will now grow up without her father). This verse completely replaced the third and fourth verses referring to infidelity in the French original.

It was released under Jacks's own name on his label, Goldfish Records and immediately topped the record charts in the U.S. (where it was released on Bell Records), in Canada, and the UK,^[3] selling over 14 million copies worldwide.

Jacks's version was released in the United States in December 1973, and made the Billboard Hot 100 a month later. On March 2, 1974, the song began a three-week run at No. 1 atop the Hot 100, and remained in the top 40 until almost Memorial Day weekend. Jacks's version also spent one week on the Easy Listening charts.^[4] Billboard ranked it as the No. 2 song for 1974.^[5] Although he released several other singles that were moderately successful in Canada, "Seasons in the Sun" would become Jacks's only major solo hit in the United States.^[6] In Canada, the single (Gold Fish GF 100) reached #1 on the RPM Magazine charts January 26, 1974, and remained there 4 weeks.

Though the song enjoyed contemporary success, modern criticism has tended to be more critical of Jacks's overly sentimentalized rewriting of the original song. Jacks's version is commonly held up as an example of bad music, having been called one of the worst pop songs ever recorded, and ranking number five on a CNN poll in 2006.^[7]

Chart performance

Version comparison

This is an English translation of the original final verse by Jacques Brel:

Good-bye, my wife, I loved you well

Good-bye, my wife, I loved you well, you know,

But I'm taking the train for the Good Lord,

I'm taking the train before yours

But you take whatever train you can;

Goodbye, my wife, I'm going to die,

It's hard to die in springtime, you know,

But I'm leaving for the flowers with my eyes closed, my wife,

Because I closed them so often,

I know you will take care of my soul.

("eyes closed" refers to closing his eyes to her infidelity, following on from the preceding verse in which he bids goodbye to his wife's lover Antoine).

The Kingston Trio's 1963 recording was the first cover of McKuen's English-language version. The last verse in McKuen's three verse freehand rendering retains Brel's reference to the wife's infidelity but with a different sensibility:

Adieu, Françoise, my trusted wife;

Without you I'd have had a lonely life.

You cheated lots of times but then,

I forgave you in the end

Though your lover was my friend.

Adieu, Françoise, it's hard to die

When all the birds are singing in the sky.

Now that spring is in the air

With your lovers ev'rywhere,

Just be careful; I'll be there.

Terry Jacks's lyrics omit the original third and fourth verses and adds this verse:

Goodbye, Michelle, my little one;

You gave me love and helped me find the sun,

And every time that I was down

You would always come around

And get my feet back on the ground.

Goodbye, Michelle, it's hard to die

When all the birds are singing in the sky;

Now that the spring is in the air,

With the flowers everywhere,

I wish that we could both be there!

Westlife version

Irish boy band Westlife covered "Seasons in the Sun" for their self-titled debut album Westlife (1999). It was released on December 19, 1999 as a double A-side with a cover of ABBA's "I Have a Dream" and became the 1999 Christmas number one. It has sold over 650,000 copies in UK so far.^[20]

Other versions

Apart from the versions noted above, there have been numerous cover versions of the song. Generally, these use the same translation as the Terry Jacks version, and thus inherit that version's less harsh interpretation of the song's storyline.

Swedish dansband Vikingarna covered the song in Swedish in 1974, as "Sommar varje dag" on the album Här kommer Vikingarna.^[21] The song has also been covered by Andy Williams, The Beach Boys, Nana Mouskouri, The Fortunes, Bad Religion, Too Much Joy, the Squirrels, Spell, Black Box Recorder, Nirvana, Indochine, Karel Gott (Léta prázdnin), Klaus Hoffmann (in German), Pearls Before Swine, Alcazar, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Second Run, The Others, Television Personalities, and Gob featuring blink-182.

In 1993, Nirvana recorded an informal version of the song which was never intended for release, but was eventually included on the DVD portion of their 2004 box-set With the Lights Out. Nirvana's lead singer, Kurt Cobain, would often reference the song in interviews, mentioning the fact that it made him cry as a child.

Another cover version, by Bobby Wright (son of Johnnie Wright and Kitty Wells), reached the Top 40 of the Billboard magazine Hot Country Singles chart in 1974.

The Manchester-based Coachmen's version was recorded at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in July 1966 and released on Columbia DB8057 in November 1966.

Spanish versions are entitled 'Epocas de Sol, Estaciones en el Sol, or Etapas de mi Vida.

There is a German version called Adieu Emile by Klaus Hoffmann published in 1975. The translated lyrics are very close to the French ones but the melody is slightly altered and the whole song has a 3/4 beat.^[22]

Italian singer/songwriter Roberto Vecchioni recorded an Italian version called "Stagioni nel sole" for his 2005 acoustic, jazz-influenced live album Il Contastorie. The title of his version is a literal translation of "Seasons in the Sun", but both the lyrics (rewritten by Vecchioni himself) and the musical structure of Vecchioni's version are much closer to Jacques Brel's original (including a vague allusion to the protagonist's wife being unfaithful) than to the Jacks/McKuen version. The accompaniment of this rendition, played on acoustic guitar, piano and double bass (with no drums) is march-like, similar to Brel's, and pointedly un-romantic.

A second French-language version, Adieu la Vie, Adieu Soleil, was recorded in 1974 by Quebec musician Jacques Amar; this version is the Québécois adaptation of Terry Jacks' version.^[23]

Croatian singer-songwriter Arsen Dedić recorded a Croatian version of the song in 1983 under the title Pjesma umirućeg. Dedić's lyrics draw more heavily on McKuen's English translation.

The band Beirut has covered "Le Moribond" live on a number of occasions. A version performed for KEXP was recorded along with "My Family's Role in the World Revolution" for the third track on the Elephant Gun EP. Beirut performs a cover that is quite faithful to the original Jacques Brel version, maintaining the French lyrics and the marching up-beat tempo.

The Finnish schlager singer Arto Sotavalta have recorded a Finnish version of the song called Päivät kuin unta (Eng. Days like dreams). The Finnish translation is very similar to the English text.

The Vietnamese version, called "Những mùa nắng đẹp" was translated by musician Pham Duy. The translated lyrics are quite similar to the English ones. A number of Vietnamese singers have covered this version.

Swedish Eurodance group Alcazar covered this song for their debut album Casino.

In 2002 a satirical version of the song lambasting the Canadian government's ageing Sea King helicopters was leaked to Esprit de Corps magazine. The lyrics were published in the Ottawa Citizen on November 20, 2002.

Another spoof was recorded in 2006 by Dundee United fan under the alias 'Terry Jack'. This version mocks the possible demise of Dundee United's arch rivals, Dundee FC who were suffering severe financial difficulties at the time.^[24] This version contains swearing and adult themes.

Also British musician Damon Albarn recorded an acoustic version^[25] of this song for a BBC Radio 2 show with Dermot O'Leary.

References

External links

• Seasons in the Sun at Super Seventies.
• "List of 'Le Moribond' covers", Brelitude.net
• "Goodbye, Papa, It's Hard to Die: The enduring appeal of an abominable pop song" (Slate.com, March 16, 2005)
• Rod McKuen on the song's origins
• Lyrics of Andy Williams cover at MetroLyrics