Written by Pete Seeger in the late 1950s. The lyrics, except for the title which is repeated throughout the song, and the final verse of the song, are adapted word-for-word from Chapter 3 of the Book of Ecclesiastes, set to music and recorded in 1962. The song was originally released as "To Everything There Is a Season" on The Limeliters' album Folk Matinee and then some months later on Seeger's own The Bitter and the Sweet. The song became an international hit in late 1965 when it was covered by The Byrds, on October 23, 1965, before reaching #1 on the Hot 100 chart on December 4, 1965. In the U.S., the song holds distinction as the #1 hit with the oldest lyrics (Book of Ecclesiastes)
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven
A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven
A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late!
In a 1988 interview with Paul Zollo, Seeger explained: "I don't read the Bible that often. I leaf through it occasionally and I'm amazed by the foolishness at times and the wisdom at other times. I call it the greatest book of folklore ever given. Not that there isn't a lot of wisdom in it. You can trace the history of people poetically." Seeger added: "I got a letter from my publisher, and he says, 'Pete, I can't sell these protest songs you write.' And I was angry. I sat down with a tape recorder and said, 'I can't write the kind of songs you want. You gotta go to somebody else. This is the only kind of song I know how to write.' I pulled out this slip of paper in my pocket and improvised a melody to it in fifteen minutes. And I sent it to him. And I got a letter from him the next week that said, 'Wonderful! Just what I'm looking for.' Within two months he'd sold it to the Limelighters and then to the Byrds. I liked the Byrds' record very much, incidentally. All those clanging, steel guitars - they sound like bells."
One man rushed to the ticket desk at Leeds station breathlessly and asked when does the 8:00 am train leave? "At 8:00" he was told. "Well its 7:59 by my watch he said" 7:57 by the clock on my mobile and 8:04 by the station clock, Which am I to go by? "You can go by any clock you wish but you can't go by the 8:00 train, for it has already left."
Time is important in our culture. We are much more time conscious than at any other age. Computers are continually being upgraded for milliseconds are too slow. Clocks rush and whirl, and control our lives. The question remains, "Are we following the right clock?" God does not follow our timing. We are in subjection to his timing. Someone said life is like a coin, you can spend it any way you want, but you can spend it only once. You can never repeat it.
Time changes things. More correctly I should say that things change with time. When I returned to my home town the last time it was not the place I remembered it as a child growing up. The huge back garden that I remembered had shrunk considerably, new buildings were put up in place of the school I attended as a child. Little tiny trees were now huge and overgrown. Neighbours were mostly gone. What happened to it all? Time passed and things change. But there are things we can take security in. Time. It has a pattern. We can trust that in 24 hours a new day will greet us. We can pattern our lives around 7 days and call it a week. We measure our Holidays by months within a year. This is all part of a gift from God to bring consistency in our inconsistent lives.
The writer of Ecclesiastes has a beautifully written view of time in Hebrew poetry that reveals important truths of time. Time is in the hand of God. The question is, "Are we?" Whose clock are we going by? For we can rush around with wrist watches on but as far as eternity goes, many don't have the foggiest idea of what time it is. Solomon explains some things from God's time table. There is right time for doing things, and there are wrong times for doing things. All things are under God's sovereignty. Are you walking in the plan and will of God for your life? Are you running and functioning according to God's time table or yours? As hard as man tries to control his life he is not its master. There are reasons for things that happen to us. There are two words Solomon uses: time and season. As they are translated for us one emphasizes an opportunity or moment that is important. The other seems to emphasize the sequence or chain of events on the other. Both are of God.
You don't have to be a philosopher or a scientist to know that time and seasons are a regular part of life no matter where you live. Were it not for the dependability of God-ordained natural laws, both science and daily life would be chaotic, if not impossible. There is an overruling providence in our lives. From before our birth to the moment of our death, God is accomplishing his divine plan. The consistency of the world’s rotation allows within a day to be the God divine pattern for our life on earth. The seasons also are ordered by God as we rotate around the sun experiencing the pattern of summer, winter, spring and Autumn (not in that order). From that pattern we govern our days, work, and life. With consistency there are things that we plan, like birthdays, and holidays, and times of planting and harvest. We see our body needs sleep within a day. Work patterns are organised around the clock that serves us 24 hour segments. From beginning of creation it seemed there were two main divisions of daily time- Gen 1:5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning-- the first day. Gen 1:14-18 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. God made two great lights-- the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night…And God saw that it was good.”
In spite of the many changes there is also the awareness that tomorrow is a new day given to us by His grace. Today is a day that is a gift. You have 24 new hours. It is not an accident. It is from God. It was patterned after His creative time table. The 7 days became a week. The week was divided up so Sabbath was a day of rest. The weeks turned into months also regulated by the rotation of the moon. The months into years. The pattern of God’s world into which we are born is seen as good. It shows us not only his creative genius, but consistency upon which we can depend the functioning of our lives.
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