Went back to the Vista computer sitting in the corner of the living room to get to the source for this track. According to the file’s properties, I downloaded The Byrds’ ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ at 12:30 in the morning, on Sunday 1st of May 2011. Just a few minutes after doing the same for their cover of ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’. It was a wild period of my life that I was behind a desktop on a Saturday night downloading music. Really, I was in the lead-up to my actual GCSE exams and going out wasn’t an option. Around that time, both songs had appeared on a radio service provided by the website we7.com, which I’ve referred to on a few occasions. I liked the two of ’em straight off the bat. When it came to ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’, I got that all-to-familiar feeling that I’d heard the song somewhere before. It’s in Forrest Gump, which I’m sure I’d seen by that point, but it was like my knowledge of the tune went much further back. This is something I’ll come back to at the end of this post.

Just over two months after completing their first album in April 1965, The Byrds were back in the studio to start work on what would become their second. Only made sense. They’d virtually created the folk rock genre, and their take on ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ had taken the world by storm. It was time to capitalise. During the sessions for this new album, they recorded an adaptation of ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ by Pete Seeger, which itself was heavily reliant on the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible. The Byrds did their thing. Applied the three-way harmonies of Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and Gene Clark. Utlilised the chiming 12-string guitars. Unlike ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ where McGuinn was the only Byrd playing his instrument alongside the world-class Wrecking Crew session musicians, all five Byrds were present, correct and performing on ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ this time ’round. They completed the song. It was released as the first single from their forthcoming album, also entitled Turn! Turn! Turn!. While maybe not as much as the worldwide smash ‘Tambourine’ was, the people of America got it to number one in their country and the folk rock train of 1965 kept rolling.

I mean, I think it’s a bit of a classic, right? The Byrds would evolve in terms of the music they’d make as the ’60s went on. But in terms of establishing that folk rock sound, ‘Tambourine Man’ and ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ solidly set the template and influenced anything like it that followed. I already mentioned them in the previous paragraph, but it’s all about the vocal melodies and the jangly guitars. The combination of those result in some good aural bliss. But I also like how the song picks up in rhythm as its outro sets in and Michael Clarke becomes a little bit more busier on the drums, pulling off some fills and triplet patterns in the process. One thing I would wish for is that The Byrds did a whole Beatles discography remix thing, though. Instruments in the right ear and just vocals in the left… It’s not a stereo mix for today’s society. Oh, and, uh, years after getting to know ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ proper in 2011, I found myself watching that Simpsons episode where Bart and Lisa become newsreaders for a children’s programme. In it, Bart seeks inspiration from Kent Brockman. Brockman assists. ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ showed up, and that unlocked a memory of sitting in front of the small TV in my grandma’s room when I was maybe eight, watching the same episode while trying not to wake her up. So there you go.