Where Have All the Flowers Gone? — an anti-war song with roots in the Don valley
Pete Seeger used an old Cossack lullaby to craft a powerful lament for dead soldiers and those they leave behind
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On a steppe of the Don River, near the border between Russia and modern-day Ukraine, a young Cossack named Gregor crosses the porch and steps into a pool of moonlight at the doorway of his hut. So writes Mikhail Sholokhov in his masterwork, And Quiet Flows the Don. In the novel it is 1912, the first world war will soon begin and, dozing off among agitated flies, Gregor hears the words of a lullaby coming from the kitchen, a wavering Cossack folk song called “Koloda-Duda”:
“And where are the geese? They’ve gone into the reeds. And where are the reeds? The girls have pulled them up. And where are the girls? The girls have taken husbands. And where are the Cossacks? They’ve gone to the war.”
In 1955, folk singer Pete Seeger is on a plane to Ohio leafing through an old notebook when he comes across the lyrics to “Koloda Duda”, which he had scribbled there some years earlier. It has been a difficult year for Seeger; in August, he had to testify under oath before the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and field questions regarding alleged communist activities in the music industry.
According to David King Dunaway’s biography of the singer, How Can I Keep from Singing?, Seeger, sporting a “plaid shirt, checked suit jacket, and a garish yellow tie”, clashed with the committee over patriotism and, at one point, offered to perform for them.
By the time Seeger gets off the plane at Cleveland he has already “Scotch-taped” a song from the Cossack ballad, adding the lines “long time passing’’, and setting it to the melody of an Irish lumberjack song, “Johnson Says He’ll Load More Hay”. That same week, Seeger premieres an early version of the song at Oberlin College, where he has been invited to play.
Four years later, a man called Joe Hickerson heard the song on Seeger’s album, The Rainbow Quest. Hickerson, a summer camp counsellor, introduced it to the children at the camp, who adapted it: “Where have all the counsellors gone? / Open curfew, everyone”, giving it a rhythm it previously lacked. Inspired by their example, Hickerson added two verses of his own:
“Where have all the soldiers gone? / Gone to graveyards every one / Where have all the graveyards gone? / Covered with flowers every one.” In 1960, Hickenson showed the longer version to Seeger, who gave him 20 per cent of the royalties.
The following year, the song drifted by the ears of folk group The Kingston Trio, who recorded it as a B-side to their single, “O Ken Karanga”. Believing it to be an obscure traditional song, they claimed ownership. The track, with its soft harmonies and fluttering acoustic strings, was a hit, reaching number 21 in the 1962 Billboard Hot 100 chart. “We didn’t know you had recorded it,” the trio’s Dave Guard said when Seeger called him. “We’ll take our name off.”
From then on, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”, its deep mourning at the ghosts of war concealed in a cheerful folk melody, was adapted by artists all over the world. It was partially responsible for kick-starting the saccharine oeuvre of Peter, Paul and Mary, who used it to cap off their eponymous debut album.
Most notable was its adaptation by Marlene Dietrich, whose daughter insisted she record it. Using an arrangement from Burt Bacharach, Dietrich went on to perform the song in English, French and German. The German version (translated as “Sag’ mir, wo die Blumen sind”) broke the Israeli taboo against singing in German when Dietrich performed it in Tel Aviv.
The 1970s brought Earth, Wind and Fire’s cover of the song from their 1972 album Last Days and Time. Recorded under cloudless Hollywood skies, this version is the most musically radical iteration, incorporating influences from Sly and the Family Stone to Motown and funk, complete with horns, swooning keyboards and a pulsating, unpredictable rhythm section.
Fifteen years later, in a pokey recording studio in Vermont, an outspoken Burlington Mayor named Bernie Sanders would also give the song a go for his own LP, We Shall Overcome. Sanders was described as “not a singer” by the project’s producer, but this didn’t stop him laying some William Shatner-esque spoken-word vocals over a slow drumroll and backing choir.
Since then, the song has been given a country spin by Dolly Parton and kitschified by Chris de Burgh. It’s been translated into dozens of languages, including Japanese, Hungarian and Ukrainian. In 2019, Massive Attack hauntingly covered the song live with Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins. In 2021 the documentary film-maker Adam Curtis used Dietrich’s German version in his BBC series, Can’t Get You Out of My Head.
The song has come a long way from its origins among the Don Cossacks, but retains the same power: a poignant exploration of war, through the terrible, gaping absences it leaves behind.