Who released it first

Turn! Turn! Turn!

Not a Byrds original — The Limeliters put it out first, in 1962

Almost everyone files “Turn! Turn! Turn!” under The Byrds, whose Columbia single topped the Billboard Hot 100 on 4 December 1965. But the first released recording belongs to the folk trio The Limeliters, who released it as “To Everything There Is a Season (Turn! Turn! Turn!)” on their RCA Victor album Folk Matinee in 1962. The song was written by Pete Seeger in 1959, its words taken almost verbatim from the third chapter of Ecclesiastes. Seeger’s own recording, on The Bitter and the Sweet, followed the Limeliters’ by some months — so even the writer was beaten to the shelf.

The record

Who released it first

Record
To Everything There Is a Season (Turn! Turn! Turn!)
Artist
The Limeliters
Release
Folk Matinee, RCA Victor LSP-2547, 1962
Writer
Pete Seeger (1959)

Released Released in 1962 as an album track — “To Everything There Is a Season (Turn! Turn! Turn!)”, track 9 on Folk Matinee (RCA Victor LSP-2547), running 2:09. Not pushed as a hit single.

Charted The recording itself has no chart placing. The album that carried it, Folk Matinee, entered Billboard’s pop albums chart on 13 October 1962, peaked at No. 21 and spent six weeks on the chart.

How the record was traced

The song’s Wikipedia article ↗ states plainly that it was first released by The Limeliters on their 1962 album Folk Matinee, under the title “To Everything There Is a Season”, and that Seeger’s own version followed some months later.

The album entry for Folk Matinee ↗ confirms the label and catalogue number (RCA Victor LSP-2547) and the Billboard run: entered 13 October 1962, peak No. 21, six weeks.

MusicBrainz ↗ holds the 1962 US Folk Matinee recording as a distinct entity, 2:09 — the version to check any reissue or streaming copy against.

Publishing was confirmed at TRO Essex Music Group ↗, which lists Seeger as writer and Melody Trails, Inc. (BMI) as publisher.

Turn! Turn! Turn! — versions and history on Wikipedia
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Fact-check

What people get wrong

The Byrds’ 1965 single is so dominant that it is routinely treated as the song’s point of origin. It is not, and neither is the songwriter’s own record.

The beliefCover, 1965

The Byrds

Their Columbia single, released 1 October 1965 and produced by Terry Melcher, hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on 4 December 1965. It is the definitive version — but it is a cover of a song already three years on record.

The originalFirst release, 1962

The Limeliters

Issued as “To Everything There Is a Season (Turn! Turn! Turn!)” on Folk Matinee (RCA Victor LSP-2547), 1962 — the first released recording of the song.

The writerWrote it, 1959

Pete Seeger

Seeger wrote the song in 1959 from Ecclesiastes 3, but his own recording — on Columbia’s The Bitter and the Sweet — came out some months after the Limeliters’.

The in-betweenCover, 1963

Judy Collins

Collins recorded it for Judy Collins 3 in 1963, in an arrangement by Jim McGuinn — the same musician who two years later cut the hit version with The Byrds.

Written by Pete Seeger in 1959; first released by The Limeliters on RCA Victor in 1962; made famous by The Byrds in 1965.

Context

Why the cover swallowed the original

The Limeliters were not hiding the song — Folk Matinee reached No. 21 on Billboard’s album chart. But it went out as an album track under a title most listeners would never think to look up: “To Everything There Is a Season.” A two-minute-nine-second trio harmony on side two of a 1962 folk LP has no chorus of jangling twelve-string to lodge it in anyone’s memory.

The Byrds had all the advantages the original lacked: a title people could shout, a national single on Columbia, and an arrangement built for AM radio. There is also a neat piece of continuity that helps explain the shape of the famous record — Jim McGuinn had arranged the song for Judy Collins in 1963, two years before he cut it with his own band. By the time the record reached No. 1, the question of who had recorded it first had stopped being asked.

The chronology, step by step
  • 1959 — Pete Seeger writes the song, adapting the opening verses of Ecclesiastes 3.
  • c. 1961 — a one-sided 78rpm acetate of Seeger performing the song, believed pressed around 1961, was found in a private collection and reported by Rolling Stone ↗ on 30 August 2018 as possibly the earliest known recording of the song. It was never commercially issued — which is why the Limeliters hold the first release, not the first recording.
  • 1962 — The Limeliters release it as “To Everything There Is a Season (Turn! Turn! Turn!)” on Folk Matinee (RCA Victor LSP-2547); the album enters the Billboard pop chart on 13 October 1962 and peaks at No. 21.
  • 1962 — Seeger’s own recording follows some months later on The Bitter and the Sweet (Columbia), produced by John Hammond.
  • 1963 — Judy Collins records it for Judy Collins 3, in an arrangement by Jim McGuinn.
  • 1 October 1965 — The Byrds’ Columbia single is released, produced by Terry Melcher; it reaches No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on 4 December 1965.
The trio that got there first put it out under a title nobody would search for.

The original recording artist

The Limeliters

American folk trio, formed July 1959 — Lou Gottlieb, Alex Hassilev, Glenn Yarbrough

Gottlieb, Hassilev and Yarbrough met in Aspen and took their name from a club there called The Limelite, forming the trio in July 1959. After a first album on Elektra they moved to RCA Victor, where the live Tonight: In Person reached the Billboard top five and The Slightly Fabulous Limeliters made the top ten. They were, at the start of the 1960s, one of the biggest concert draws in American folk — and in 1962 they became the first act to release Pete Seeger’s new song, tucked onto side two of Folk Matinee as an album track rather than pushed as a single.

Popularly credited as the original

The Byrds

American folk-rock band, formed Los Angeles 1964

The Byrds’ version is the reason the song is famous, and deservedly so. Roger (then Jim) McGuinn had already arranged it in a chamber-folk style for Judy Collins’ 1963 album Judy Collins 3 before the band rebuilt it as jangling folk-rock on a July 1965 tour. Producer Terry Melcher pushed them through days of sessions at Columbia’s Hollywood studios across September 1965; the single appeared on 1 October 1965 and reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on 4 December. The only error in the popular account is chronological: they were at least the fourth act to put it out — fifth if you count Marlene Dietrich’s 1963 German-language single — not the first.

The songwriter

Pete Seeger

1919–2014 · American folk singer, banjoist and songwriter

Seeger wrote the song in 1959, setting the opening verses of Ecclesiastes 3 to a melody of his own and adding only the title phrase and the final two lines. He recorded it himself for The Bitter and the Sweet, cut live for Columbia and produced by John Hammond — but that release came out after the Limeliters’. It is one of the odder facts about one of the most-covered songs of the century: the man who wrote it was not the first person to release it.