The “perfect” song Roger McGuinn wanted The Byrds to be remembered for
It’s not often that an artist picks a song that they’re most associated with to describe as being “perfect”. While that might come off as egotistical or narcissistic, it couldn’t be farther from the truth when it comes to The Byrds founder, Roger McGuinn.
As a talented singer-songwriter, McGuinn put out an extensive collection of classic tracks that has his name on the credits. His vast discography spans solo projects, The Byrds, McGuinn, Clark & Hillman, the Folk Den Project, and more. And along the way, he established a style of guitar playing that may well be the sole reason ‘jangly’ has been such an overused word in indie reviews for the last 60 years.
However, during his early career with The Byrds, the folk-rock pioneers gained fame by reinterpreting the works of other artists. Most famously, this came down to the band’s covers of Bob Dylan songs. Through a connection in their record label, The Byrds were able to hear Dylan’s ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ before it was officially released on 1965’s Bringing It All Back Home, and recorded it just five days after Dylan’s original version was put to tape.
In the process, they ushered the original vagabond towards an electric version of folk. But on a deeper sense, what they achieved with the cover was an uncanny collision of the past and present, taking the creaking old acoustic format and revivifying it for the modern age.
So, for their second album, The Byrds once again turned to another famous figure in the folk community for inspiration. This time, it was Pete Seeger. McGuinn had known of ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’, Seeger’s musical interpretation of the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes, for some time before recording it with his own band.
McGuinn had previously arranged versions of the track for Judy Collins and The Limeliters before remembering the tune while on tour in 1965. He was struck by how pertinent the words seemed to remain in the uproarious era, and how easily the simple tune could be tweaked into his newly established jangle sound.
“It was a standard folk song by that time, but I played it and it came out rock ‘n’ roll because that’s what I was programmed to do like a computer,” McGuinn explained in the book The Byrds: Timeless Flight. “I couldn’t do it as it was traditionally. It came out with that samba beat, and we thought it would make a good single.”
The Byrds’ version became a number one hit in the United States when it was released as a single in 1965. It was the band’s second and final number one hit. Over the years, McGuinn would remain associated with ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’, so much so that Seeger’s original authorship was often forgotten about. But McGuinn was always quick to give Seeger the credit he deserved.
“Clive Davis once told me that a hit song consists of a catchy melody and lyrics with a formula: verse, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, instrumental, verse and chorus fade,” McGuinn told NPR’s All Songs Considered. “The perfect song to me would be Pete Seeger’s ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ even though it doesn’t follow the formula. Pete wrote a lovely melody and adapted the lyrics from the timeless truths of Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8.”
It remains just as timeless today, with The Byrds perfectly capturing the zeitgeist of the ‘60s with a soulful message that lives on. And that’s just as well, given how proud of the era-less era-defining track he is.
