Who recorded it first

Seasons in the Sun

Not a Terry Jacks original — a 1961 Jacques Brel single called “Le Moribond”

The 1974 chart-topper is so completely Terry Jacks’ record that the song is often assumed to have started with him. It did not. Jacques Brel wrote and recorded it in French as “Le Moribond” — cut on 22 February 1961 and released that July on Philips — and the English words are Rod McKuen’s adaptation, first put on record by the Kingston Trio. Brel’s original is a briskly-paced farewell song that reached number 20 on the Wallonian chart and went no further; Jacks reworked the English lyric again in Vancouver in 1973 and sold a reported fourteen million copies.

The record

Who recorded it first

Original title
Le Moribond
Recorded
22 February 1961
Released
July 1961 · Philips
Album
N°5 : Marieke (Philips B 76.513 R)

Released Issued in July 1961 on Philips as “Le Moribond”, recorded in Paris on 22 February 1961 and carried on Brel’s 10-inch album catalogued N°5 : Marieke.

Charted Peaked at number 20 on the Wallonian (French-speaking Belgium) chart in September 1961. No international chart placing.

Hear Jacques Brel’s original 1961 studio recording of “Le Moribond”. www.youtube.com · Auto-generated “Provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group” upload on the official Jacques Brel Topic channel. The description carries the ℗ 1961 Barclay line and names the album Marieke (Vol.5), and the video runs 3:06 — matching the MusicBrainz length for the 1961 studio recording, and ruling out the 1972 re-recording that also circulates on official Brel channels under the same title.

How it got from Brussels to the Hot 100

Brel recorded “Le Moribond” on 22 February 1961 and Philips released it that July; it reached number 20 in French-speaking Belgium that September — see Wikipedia on “Le Moribond” ↗.

Rod McKuen’s English adaptation reached record via the Kingston Trio, whose version sits on the Capitol album Time to Think, recorded in San Francisco in 1963 — album details ↗.

Terry Jacks first offered the song to the Beach Boys while producing them; the July 1970 session was abandoned, so he recorded it himself in Vancouver in 1973 — the song’s history ↗.

The Jacks single began three weeks at number one on the Hot 100 on 2 March 1974, on Goldfish in Canada and Bell in the US — Terry Jacks ↗.

Le Moribond on MusicBrainz — the composition and every recording of it
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Fact-check

What’s actually true

The 1974 single is so dominant that the song is routinely treated as a Terry Jacks creation. Three separate credits get collapsed into one.

The beliefPopularly credited

Terry Jacks

His 1973 recording went to number one in the US, UK and Canada and sold a reported 14 million copies, so it reads as the original.

The original recordingFirst on record

Jacques Brel

Recorded “Le Moribond” on 22 February 1961 and released it that July on Philips; it reached number 20 on the Wallonian chart.

The writerComposition

Jacques Brel, with Rod McKuen

Brel wrote the words and music; McKuen wrote the English adaptation that became “Seasons in the Sun”. Jacks altered McKuen’s lyric further.

The first English versionOften skipped

The Kingston Trio

Their reading of McKuen’s adaptation appeared on Time to Think (Capitol, December 1963) and is what Jacks later heard; issued as a single, it failed to chart.

Right song, wrong originator: Terry Jacks made the hit, Jacques Brel made the record.

Context

Why the cover swallowed the original

Brel’s record and Jacks’ record are not really the same song in temperament. The 1961 original is a dying man’s farewell delivered at a marching clip, closer to gallows humour than to grief, and it stayed a French-language chanson with a number 20 placing in French-speaking Belgium. What crossed the Atlantic was not the recording but the composition, carried by Rod McKuen’s English adaptation.

The other reason the original vanished is that the famous version arrived by a genuinely odd route. Terry Jacks was producing the Beach Boys and pitched the song to them; the 1970 session was abandoned unfinished and the track sat unreleased until 2021. Jacks recorded it himself instead, softening the English lyric further, and the result went to number one on three continents. A record that big does not leave much room behind it.

The chronology, step by step
  • 22 February 1961 — Jacques Brel records “Le Moribond”, his own words and music, for Philips.
  • July 1961 — the recording is released; it peaks at number 20 on the Wallonian chart that September and does not chart internationally.
  • 1963 — the Kingston Trio record the first English-language version, using Rod McKuen’s adaptation; it appears on their Capitol album Time to Think in December 1963 and is pulled as a single in 1964, which fails to chart. (Wikipedia’s song article dates the Trio’s recording to 1964, and its Terry Jacks article gives McKuen’s adaptation as 1965 — the sources are not fully consistent on these two secondary dates.)
  • 31 July 1970 — the Beach Boys attempt the song with Jacks producing; the session is abandoned and the track goes unreleased until 2021.
  • 1973 — Jacks re-records it in Vancouver with his own further changes to the English lyric, issuing it on Goldfish Records in Canada and Bell Records in the US.
  • 2 March 1974 — the Jacks single begins a three-week run at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and tops the UK and Canadian charts.
The song travelled as a composition, not as a recording — which is exactly how originals get forgotten.

The original recording artist

Jacques Brel

1929–1978 · Belgian singer-songwriter · Philips, then Barclay

Born in Schaerbeek, Brussels in 1929, Brel became the defining voice of the modern chanson — theatrical, unsentimental, and enormously influential well beyond the French-speaking world. He recorded for Philips from 1953 before moving to Barclay in 1962. “Le Moribond” is his own composition, words and music, and his own 1961 recording is the first the song ever had. He died in 1978, aged 49.

Popularly credited as the original

Terry Jacks

b. 1944, Winnipeg · Canadian singer, songwriter and producer

Jacks came out of Vancouver via the Chessmen and the Poppy Family, whose “Which Way You Goin’ Billy?” topped the Canadian chart. He first brought the song to the Beach Boys, whom he was producing; when that came to nothing he cut it himself in Vancouver in 1973 and put it out on his own Goldfish label. It is a genuinely great pop record and the biggest-selling international single by a Canadian artist of its era — it simply is not the first version, and Jacks never claimed it was.

The English adaptation

Rod McKuen

1933–2015 · American poet, singer and songwriter

McKuen was among the best-selling poets in America in the late 1960s and one of the principal conduits through which Brel reached English-speaking listeners — “Ne me quitte pas” became his “If You Go Away”, and “Le Moribond” became “Seasons in the Sun”. His adaptation is what the Kingston Trio recorded, and what Jacks later altered further. The music throughout remains Brel’s.