“Where Have All the Flowers Gone” was written by Pete Seeger in 1955, with later verses added by Joe Hickerson around 1960. Seeger drew the opening lines from a Russian folk song quoted in a novel he was reading and set them to an Irish melody.
The song is a quiet protest against war, built as a circle. Flowers are picked by young girls, who marry young men, who become soldiers, who fill the graveyards, where flowers grow once more — and the chain begins again, each verse ending with the question of when anyone will ever learn.
The song became an anthem of the folk revival and the antiwar movement.
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