Personal Hits #7

Terry Jacks "Seasons In The Sun"

Your first sense of impending death is different than the garden variety of death they teach you about in school. It’s an ogre waiting in a chair in the corner of the dining room picking its nails and snacking on something. It hangs around, legs crossed, chilling ‘cause someone, in this case Canadian pop singer Terry Jacks has summoned it, called it by its name. He’s invited it in a personal tone, with a Telecaster through a little amp set on both tremolo and reverb. His  lips glacier blue from singing the coldest, saddest words ever written in a number one pop song.

I was sitting at the dining room table  next to the family air conditioner when I first heard “Seasons in the Sun.” I’m pretty sure it was coming from the radio upstairs where my brothers had it on,getting ready for rest of what I’m sure was an exciting day for them. I was super young but I knew language pretty well and the lyrics hit me like a curtain wall of sadness squarely in my little ribcage.

Goodbye my friend, it's hard to die

When all the birds are singing in the sky

Now that the spring is in the air

Pretty girls are everywhere

Think of me and I'll be there

Here, friends, you see my tiny head peer for the first time into an airless chasm. I couldn’t take it. I don’t remember if I cried but I knew my  emotional response became an issue. I was uncontrollable to the extent that mom had to tell them to turn the song off.

“Seasons in the Sun” became my musical enemy from that point on, the psychic food you never want to eat again because it made you wretch so hard. Bringing it back into my life at 55 to write about it required the kind bravery I’ve only previously had to muster when I began eating turkey gravy again.  Fucking grim. This song took my innocence.

Jaques Brel penned the original while in residency at a Tangiers sex club, because that's what wealthy Belgian dandies did in 1961, apparently.  “Le Moribond” is a quaint chanson march written from the perspective of man expiring from a broken heart because his best friend was screwing his wife. You know, basic Belgian sad guy shit. He says goodbye his priest, his wife and his despicable pal. No cheerful lusty cuckolding for this European.

Famous poet Rod McKuen translated the original, sending it to The Kingston Trio who made the recording that pricked Jacks' ears.

In Jacks’ version the dying protagonist is shifted from the disappointed horny to a young person with leukemia at the end of life telling his people goodbye. A true story about one of his friends, as Jacks tells it.

Goodbye papa, please pray for me

I was the black sheep of the family

You tried to teach me right from wrong

Too much wine and too much song

Wonder how I got along

When he was brought in to produce The Beach Boy’s “Surf’s Up” in 1970, Jacks presented the song to them. They worked on it but gave up. Mike Love claimed it was “too wimpy- we had to throw it out.” Go figure.

He didn’t need The Beach Boys. Terry Jacks worked his ass off. After beginning with The Chessmen and, later in the 60s having success with The Poppy Family, he was an in-demand producer with a voice that could really get you where it counts. His pop sensibility was on-trend. Punchy drums, great guitar tones and focused vocals went a long way on the radio in that day, especially when the majority of the playback devices were in glorious mono.

There was no reason for me to think of Terry Jacks as anything but a grim hippie worm until I came across an interview with him by Nardwuar. I’ll attach the link here- it’s pretty hilarious and he comes across as graciously as a human can in an interview. Seems like he’s the first to laugh at the switchback nature of the work he chose for himself before he could legally drink.

I’m glad he turned out sweet. Not all music people do as I’ve seen first hand. His success with “Seasons” pigeonholed him to the extent that he ghosted the music biz and began fighting the Canadian wood pulp industry’s dark practices by setting up flotillas and hurling bags of dog shit. Dark times, he said.

But as of his last published interview in 2014 he’s sold his boat “Seasons in the Sun,” built a house on an island in British Columbia, living his best life- just a phone, his faith and the big cold ocean.

You’re a good egg Mr. Jacks and  I’ll toast you with a blueberry smoothie knowing I’ll never have to hear this 3 minutes and 28 seconds of lachrymose doom ever again.

And the ogre in the corner of the dining room I accused you of summoning? It was already there for me to encounter in some other way. I’m glad it was you.