About The Song
“Seasons in the Sun” is an English-language adaptation of the song “Le Moribond” by Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel with lyrics by American singer-poet Rod McKuen. It became a worldwide hit in 1974 for Canadian singer Terry Jacks and it became a Christmas number one in the UK in 1999 for Westlife. Terry Jacks’s version is one of the fewer than forty all-time singles to have sold 10 million copies worldwide.
Terry Jacks recorded “Seasons in the Sun” in Vancouver in 1973 with his then-wife Susan Jacks. They made the decision to record the song when The Beach Boys, who had recorded a version with Terry Jacks producing, decided to abandon their recording.
Jacks released his version as a single in 1973 on his own label, Goldfish Records. “Put the Bone In”, an original composition about burying a deceased pet dog, was included as the B-side. The single soon topped the record charts in the U.S. (where it was released on Bell Records), in Canada, and the UK, selling over 14 million copies worldwide.
Jacks’s version was released in the United States in December 1973, and made the Billboard Hot 100 a month later. On March 2, 1974, the song began a three-week run at number one atop the Hot 100, and remained in the top 40 until almost Memorial Day weekend. Jacks’s version also spent one week on the Easy Listening charts. Billboard ranked it as the number two song for 1974. Although he released several other singles that were moderately successful in Canada, “Seasons in the Sun” would become Jacks’s only major solo hit in the United States. In Canada, the single (Gold Fish GF 100) reached number one on the RPM Magazine charts January 26, 1974 and remained there four weeks.
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I remember when this song came out and I loved it then and still do. It came out the year I graduated high school and I did play it a lot on my record player at home and at college! We put a lot of songs on cassette tapes then to play when we were driving!
Brings back many memories. Kind of sad but I still love it!