Turn! Turn! Turn!
| Turn! Turn! Turn! | ||||
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| Studio album by The Byrds | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | Columbia | |||
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Format (s) |
CD, LP |
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Title (number) |
11 |
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running time |
30 min 24 s |
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Turn! Turn! Turn! is the second music album by the American folk rock band The Byrds . It was released on December 12, 1965 on the Columbia Records label . The album peaked at # 17 on the pop charts in the United States and # 11 in the UK . Turn! Turn! Turn! mostly received benevolent reviews, but not the praise that his predecessor, Mr. Tambourine Man, received .
The first single on the album, Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season) , was released before it was released on October 1st. It is the cover version of a Pete Seeger song released in 1962 . The single was very successful in the United States, but only made it to number 26 in the UK . On the B-side is the Gene Clark composition She Don't Care About Time , which is not included on the original album, but is on the CD re-release can be found in the bonus tracks .
On January 10, 1966 , another single was released from the album. It Won't Be Wrong / Set You Free This Time only hit 63rd in the United States and also failed in the top 40 in the UK.
The sound of the album, similar to its predecessor, is shaped by the vocal harmonies of McGuinn, Clarks and Crosby, as well as the sound of McGuinn's twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar.
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
After their second single, All I Really Want To Do , was released, the Byrds went back to the studio with their manager Jim Dickson to record the next. Another song was to be interpreted by Bob Dylan and the choice fell on It's All Over Now, Baby Blue from his album Bringing It All Back Home . Dickson occupied the producer's chair himself, as the regular producer Terry Melcher was just out of reach. The finished demo recording was then immediately played on the radio stations in Los Angeles and announced as "the Byrds' new single". In 1969 the song was recycled for the album Ballad of Easy Rider by the Byrds in a slower, re-recorded version. The project was not pursued, among other things because of the below-average sound quality according to Melcher, and the band turned to the editing of another song by Pete Seeger .
Turn! Turn! Turn! / She Don't Care About Time (Single)
Roger McGuinn had accompanied Judy Collins on guitar on her album Judy Collins # 3 (Elektra) in 1963 and the Seeger song Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season) arranged. Seeger, in turn, borrowed the text from the Old Testament, and here from the Books of Ecclesiates (Book Of Ecclesiates, also Book of Kohelet or Preacher Solomon) and set it to music. McGuinn's suggestion to record his own version as a single A-side initially met resistance from David Crosby . When it finally got to work, 50-78 takes were necessary to achieve the desired result: another classic of the Byrds that reached No. 1 in the US charts within a very short time. McGuinn's simple opening theme is accompanied by Chris Hillman with a descending bass figure. During the verse, the bass provides a counterpoint to McGuinn's bell-like, clattering play on the twelve-string electric Rickenbacker guitar, which is tuned half a tone lower.
The back of the single, She Don't Care About Time , written by Gene Clark , was not included on the new album in order to curb Clark's flood of royalties. The song is a fan favorite and for a long time was only available on the original single. It did not appear again until 1980 on the album The Original Singles 1965 - 1967 Vol. 1 . One of the first takes of the song put Clark's voice clearly in the foreground and his harmonica solo could be heard in the bridge. It was released in this form on The Byrds Boxed Set in 1990 . A third version can be heard as a bonus track on the 1996 CD, with a faster tempo and Terry Melcher playing a melody similar to Satisfaction ( Rolling Stones ) on the piano . On all three versions, McGuinn plays a guitar solo on a theme by Johann Sebastian Bach , Jesus, you my joy. The song was part of Gene Clark's live program until his death in 1991.
Turn! Turn! Turn! (Album)
The album of the same name was released just in time for Christmas 1965. With the same producer and the same line-up, the Byrds had recorded three singles and two LPs within 10 months. Perhaps the hectic pace and pressure of this year contributed to the fact that the second album exuded a little less esprit than its predecessor. On the other hand, the band set out for new musical shores here. The hummed background vocals on If You're Gone already announce the experiments with Ragas and Satisfied Mind and Oh! Susanna applies the country influences on her next albums.
It Won't Be Wrong follows the title track . McGuinn, Clark and Crosby had recorded the song as Don't Be Long back in 1964 under the pseudonym The Beefeaters (formerly The Jet Set ) as a single B-side. Like the A-side Please Let Me Love You , it was composed by McGuinn with his friend Harvey Gerst from the Troubadour Folk Club. The much more developed version on the album ultimately met the requirements of the Byrds and their producer, so that it was the successor single to Turn! Turn! Turn! has been published.
The front page of this single and the next track on the album is Set You Free This Time . Here, too, Gene Clark is orienting himself more and more towards Bob Dylan's characteristic compositional style. He explained that he wrote the song during a tour of England after speaking with Paul McCartney in a London club: “When I got back to my hotel room, I unpacked the guitar and wrote the song in four hours. After that I slept a full twelve hours ”.
The Byrds also interpreted two Bob Dylan songs on their second LP. With Lay Down Your Weary Tune they dared to create a complicated and abstract text with a harmonious, almost hymn-sounding arrangement. According to McGuinn, Lay Down Your Weary Tune was "the song that convinced Dylan that the Byrds really were something." McGuinn: "He came into my apartment in New York and said, 'Until I heard that (song) I thought you were just an impersonator ... but this really has feeling'".
He Was A Friend Of Mine is a traditional folk song that was part of the stage program of many folk musicians. Bob Dylan also recorded a version of it in 1962. A year later McGuinn wrote a new text: “I wrote the song the night John F. Kennedy was murdered (November 22, 1963). You could say it was one of the first Byrds songs. Our arrangement was what I had always sung. I just thought it would be a good idea to take it on the album ”. Without being asked, producer Terry Melcher added a tambourine, which, in the band's opinion, was not exactly in time and way too loud, as well as an organ that was supposed to emulate strings. How the original may have sounded becomes clear when listening to the version released on The Byrds Boxed Set in 1990 . The special features of the arrangement consist of Hillman's bass, which practically plays a second melody, and the choral movement. Instead of - as usual - McGuinn and Clark's singing in unison and Crosby in his overvoice in the tenor, Clark added a third voice below McGuinn's.
Gene Clark's The World Turns All Around Her is a fast paced pop song. As with I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better on the first album, the content is about disappointed love. According to Jim Dickson, the band is said to have addressed the complicated love life of Gene Clark and David Crosby said: “All right. As soon as they split up again, we'll get a new song ”.
The Byrds undertook their first excursion into the country music camp with Satisfied Mind . Chris Hillman suggested this song, which Porter Wagoner had put in the top ten of the country charts in 1954. The arrangement is based on folk music, but McGuinn went to great lengths to mimic a pedal steel guitar with his Rickenbacker guitar.
For If You're Gone , a ballad by Gene Clark, McGuinn had the idea, together with Crosby, to add a background vocals as an additional voice, which is modeled on the hardly changing tone of a bagpipe. The Byrds entered an innovative level here, which was to lead them to experiments with Indian raga music on their next album, Fifth Dimension .
The second Dylan cover of the album, The Times They Are A-Changin ' , was recorded with the full band, in contrast to the original version of Bob Dylan.
David Crosby was first mentioned as a writer on Wait And See . He had written the song with McGuinn, but later couldn't remember which part he had contributed. According to her co-manager Eddie Tickner , both originally wanted to get away from the boy-girl cliché in song lyrics. The result was a text that corresponded to this cliché even more than any previous one by Gene Clark.
As on the previous album, the Byrds let their LP end in a humorous way. The editing of Oh! Susanna , the minstrel song by Stephen Foster from 1848, should surprise the fans again. In order to make it clear to the "hipsters" that the Byrds would not take over such "Square" material 1 to 1, they played it with an up-tempo rhythm, McGuinn replaced the banjo with his electric Rickenbacker and Michael Clarke had another military drum Inlay. A few years later, Chris Hillman's influence on the band grew and his fellow musicians learned from him to deal more enlightened with original material from folk and country.
The Day Walk (Never Before) / Stranger In A Strange Land
In 1987 another composition by Gene Clark from that period appeared. The song Never Before gave the album on which it appeared its name. When he could be heard again on The Byrds Boxed Set in 1990 , researchers had meanwhile discovered the original master tape with the actual song title: The Day Walk . This song from the early Byrds albums, typical of Clark, has a dominant walking bass run as a highlight.
Crosby also rediscovered a forgotten recording from this period and released it as an outtake on the 1996 CD: an instrumental backing track to Stranger In A Strange Land . Judging by the title, Crosby is referring to the science fiction novel of the same name by Robert Heinlein . This book describes a bohemian elite who believe in a higher truth and practice free love. Crosby referred to this same lifestyle in his 1967 song Triad .
Summary
With their first two albums, Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn! Turn! Turn! the Byrds set the standard for the new musical genre of folk rock. In terms of quality and their influence on popular music as a whole, they are on an equal footing with the LPs Revolver ( Beatles ), Aftermath (Rolling Stones), Face to Face ( Kinks ) and Pet Sounds ( Beach Boys ).
Track list
A side
- Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season) (Pete Seeger / text based on the book of Kohelet ) - 3:49
- It Won't Be Wrong (Roger McGuinn / Harvey Gerst ) - 1:58
- Set You Free This Time (Gene Clark) - 2:49
- Lay Down Your Weary Tune ( Bob Dylan ) - 3:30
- He Was a Friend of Mine ( Traditional / Arrangement: Roger McGuinn) - 2:30
B side
- The World Turns All Around Her (Gene Clark) - 2:13
- Satisfied Mind ( Red Hayes / Jack Rhodes ) - 2:26
- If You're Gone (Gene Clark) - 2:45
- The Times They Are A-Changin ' (Bob Dylan) - 2:18
- Wait and See (Roger McGuinn / David Crosby) - 2:19
- Oh! Susannah ( Stephen Foster ) - 3:03
Republication
On April 30, 1996 , Columbia released the album on CD with the following bonus tracks:
- The Day Walk (Never Before) (Gene Clark) - 3:00
- She Don't Care About Time (Gene Clark) - 2:29 (Original Single B-side)
- The Times They Are A-Changin ' (Bob Dylan) - 1:54 (alternate version)
- It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bob Dylan) - 3:03
- She Don't Care About Time (Gene Clark) - 2:35 (alternative version)
- The World Turns All Around Her (Gene Clark) - 2:12 (alternative version)
- Stranger in a Strange Land (David Crosby) - 3:04 (instrumental)
Web links
- Turn! Turn! Turn! at Byrdwatcher
- Turn! Turn! Turn! Lyrics
- Turn! Turn! Turn! at Allmusic (English)
- Turn! Turn! Turn! Record cover
Individual evidence
- ^ Wieland Harms: The Unplugged Guitar Book. 20 of the most beautiful songs for acoustic guitar. Gerig Music, ISBN 3-87252-249-3 , pp. 17-19 ( Turn! Turn! Turn! The Byrds ).