Choosing a title that conveys the theme and story of a novel is usually a great challenge for me, but the title, Gone to Flowers, came to me with ease and authority.
The phrase comes from the song, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?," considered by many to be one of the best-known political songs. The song captures the turbulence and tragedy of all wars and was especially meaningful to those in the antiwar movement during the Vietnam Era, the time period of Gone to Flowers.
Pete Seeger wrote the first three verses in 1955 at a time in his life when his freedom, career, and safety were threatened.
He was being targeted by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), a government committee that was supposedly investigating alleged subversives and communists. Seeger testified before HUAC in the same year. (In 1956 the House of Representatives voted 373 to 9 to cite Seeger and seven others for contempt in failing to cooperate with HUAC.)
In this dark time of Seeger's life, he was on a plane en route to a concert in Ohio and leafing through a notebook. He saw this passage, "Where are the flowers, the girls have plucked them. Where are the girls, they've all taken husbands. Where are the man, they're all in the army."
These lines came from a traditional Cossacks folk song, "Tovchu, tovchu mak." A few years earlier, Seeger had read them in the Mikhail Sholokhov novel, And Quiet Flows the Don (published in 1932). They became the basis for "Where Have All the Flowers Gone."
The last two verses were written in 1960 by Joe Hickerson, a noted folk singer who from 1963 to 1998 was Librarian and Director of the Archive of Folk Song at the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress. This addition brings the song full circle and adds a message of hope and faith.
In 1962 Marlene Dietrich sang the song at a UNICEF concert in Germany. The Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Joan Baez, Harry Belafonte, Earth, Wind & Fire, Dolly Parton, U2, and other diverse individuals and groups have sung and/or recorded it. Variants of the song have been sung in Russia, China, and Croatia.
Gone to Flowers, the story of young people trying to build peace, fellowship, and new ways of living during a time of war, echoes the theme of this universally beloved song. The universal message of the devastation of war and the call to grow the flowers of peace continues to be powerful and urgent. As long as we need to hear this message, it will be sung.
Although the lyrics vary slightly from singer to singer, this is my favorite version.
Where have all the flowers gone,
Long time passing,
Where have all the flowers gone,
Long time ago,
Where have all the flowers gone,
Young girls pick them, every one,
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the young girls gone,
Long time passing,
Where have all the young girls gone,
Long time ago,
Where have all the young girls gone,
Gone to young men, every one,
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the young men gone,
Long time passing,
Where have all the young men gone,
Long time ago,
Where have all the young men gone,
Gone for soldiers, every one,
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the soldiers gone,
Long time passing,
Where have all the soldiers gone,
Long time ago,
Where have all the soldiers gone,
Gone to graveyards, every one,
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the graveyards gone,
Long time passing,
Where have all the graveyards gone,
Long time ago,
Where have all the graveyards gone,
Gone to flowers, every one,
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
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