Turn! Turn! Turn!
View on Discogs
View on Wikipedia
Album Summary
Turn! Turn! Turn! was laid down in 1965 at Columbia Recording Studios out in Hollywood, California, and released by Columbia Records in December of that year. Terry Melcher — the same cat who produced the Byrds' debut — was back behind the glass, and brother, he knew exactly what he had on his hands. The band was riding a wave of momentum that just would not quit, and these sessions captured them locking in tight on that signature sound: Roger McGuinn's glorious jangly 12-string Rickenbacker ringing out like church bells on a Sunday morning, those silky harmonies stacked up like something heaven-sent, and a marriage of folk songwriting with rock instrumentation that felt both urgent and timeless. The album drew from a rich well — Pete Seeger adaptations, Bob Dylan covers, and original compositions — painting a full and deeply felt portrait of a band that had found its voice and was not about to let go of it.
Reception
- The title track 'Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season)', adapted from the Book of Ecclesiastes through the artistry of Pete Seeger, climbed all the way to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1965, making it one of the most beloved and enduring hits of that entire year.
- The album itself settled in at number 17 on the Billboard 200, a strong showing that told the world the Byrds were not a one-album wonder but a genuine force in the American music landscape.
- Critics of the day praised the album's vocal harmony work and its cohesive folk-rock vision, though a handful of voices suggested the sound, magnificent as it was, was beginning to trace familiar ground compared to the shock of the new that their debut had delivered.
Significance
- Turn! Turn! Turn! stands as one of the founding documents of the folk-rock genre, and no serious student of 1960s American music can afford to sleep on it — the Byrds were building a bridge between the acoustic folk revival and the rock mainstream, and this album is one of the strongest planks in that bridge.
- The decision to take ancient biblical scripture from Ecclesiastes and ride it straight up to number one on the pop charts was nothing short of a revelation — it proved that music rooted in spiritual and literary tradition could speak directly to a generation hungry for meaning, and it opened a door that artists have been walking through ever since.
- The album arrived at a moment when countercultural and antiwar feeling was rising like floodwater across America, and its lyrical themes gave voice to those anxieties with grace and melody, demonstrating once and for all that commercially viable music and genuine moral seriousness were not mutually exclusive.
Tracklist
-
A1 Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season) 124
3:34
-
A2 It Won't Be Wrong 123
1:58
-
A3 Set You Free This Time 98
2:49
-
A4 Lay Down Your Weary Tune 95
3:30
-
A5 He Was A Friend Of Mine 79
2:30
-
B1 The World Turns All Around Her 134
2:12
-
B2 Satisfied Mind 80
2:21
-
B3 If You're Gone 160
2:45
-
B4 The Times They Are A-Changin' 123
2:17
-
B5 Wait And See 137
2:19
-
B6 Oh! Susannah 171
3:00
Artist Details
The Byrds were a visionary group out of Los Angeles, California, who came together in 1964 and proceeded to rewrite the rulebook by fusing the jangly twelve-string Rickenbacker sound with the poetic sensibility of Bob Dylan and the British Invasion, essentially birthing what the world would come to know as folk rock. With timeless cuts like "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Turn! Turn! Turn!" these cats didn't just make music — they shaped the entire sonic landscape of the mid-to-late sixties and laid the groundwork for country rock, psychedelia, and beyond. The Byrds' influence runs so deep that you can hear their echo in just about every guitar-driven act that followed, making them one of the most quietly powerful forces in the whole history of American popular music.
