Almanac Music: Scenes from an Australian Eden – The Seekers Performing ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’ at Chateau Yaldara, Barossa Valley, 1967

 

The Seekers, DVD cover for two sixties TV specials. [Wikimedia Commons.]

 

Almanac Music: Scenes from an Australian Eden – The Seekers Performing ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’ at Chateau Yaldara, Barossa Valley, 1967

 

 

Just about everything about this film clip (at the bottom of my piece, from the TV program The Seekers Down Under, 1967) of The Seekers performing ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’ is beautiful … the bright Australian sunlight, the cloudless skies, the dusty vineyards of Chateau Yaldara in South Australia’s Barossa Valley, the bluish-purple hue of the grapes … the young, ponytailed Judith Durham … . Even the boys, Athol, Keith and Bruce, are looking sharp and in the prime of their lives.

 

There’s something Edenic about the whole thing, too. Beginnings, or at least, much earlier times, are signalled, looking back from the perspective of today … Australian music starting to show itself to the wider world, the sense of a more natural, unencumbered era, and, to those of us of a certain age, memories associated with our childhood.

 

It is certainly fitting, in another respect, that the Seekers are singing ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’ in a setting with Biblical resonance, given that Pete Seeger, who wrote the song, lifted the words almost intact from Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament, a rich source of inspiration for many writers across the centuries:

 

 

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
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

 

[Seeger lyrics sourced from lyricfind.com]

 

 

Judith Durham’s clarion, bell-like voice delivers the song superbly. The call for peace in the world, at its conclusion, remains as relevant as ever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more from Kevin, click HERE.

 

 

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About

Kevin Densley is a graduate of both Deakin University and The University of Melbourne. He has taught writing and literature in numerous Victorian universities and TAFES. He is a poet and writer-in-general. His fifth book-length poetry collection, Please Feed the Macaws ... I'm Feeling Too Indolent, was published in late 2023 by Ginninderra Press. He is also the co-author of ten play collections for young people, as well as a multi Green Room Award nominated play, Last Chance Gas, which was published by Currency Press. Other writing includes screenplays for educational films.

Comments

  1. I much prefer The Byrds version. Other than Judith’s perfect diction it’s a pretty stilted version of a marvellous song with profound lyrics (wonder if Ecca got any royalties?)
    From memory Chateau Yaldara had a similarly stilted history. Mainly became known for brandy grapes and fortified wine. Now Chinese owned. Love the old bush vines in the video. Wonder if they survived to be trellised or were pulled in the government subsidised Vine Pull scheme of the 1980’s? Perhaps our Barossa correspondent could give us the inside word on Chateau Yaldara?
    “Changed trainer. Pass until it shows something.”

  2. Kevin Densley says

    Thanks for the comments, Peter. I prefer The Seekers’ version of the song, primarily because of the purity of Durham’s lead vocals. However, we all have our own views on these kinds of things, which is fair enough, of course – the best thing about The Byrds’ version, I feel, is the lovely, jangly guitar sound, which sounds like a twelve-string Rickenbacker to me.

    And yes, what a deep influence Ecclesiastes has had on Western writing … Shakespeare, T.S.Eliot, Tolstoy, Shaw, Edith Wharton, Hemingway … the list could go on and on …

    I was aware of a bit of Chateau Yaldara’s history, but I agree, maybe ‘Our Man in the Barossa’ could tell us more.

  3. Love it Kevin. Thanks for the link to the clip. It evokes memories of my very earliest years in which the Australian landscape was all that I knew. Too young to have been ‘a fan’, but sufficiently present enough for their sound to have created an imprint.

  4. Kevin Densley says

    Thanks, Kate, for your comments. Glad the piece, especially the clip, resonated with you as it did. I think we’re roughly the same ‘vintage’, pardon the wine pun!

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