The “Golden Hits Of The 70s”
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TERRY JACKS
“SEASONS IN THE SUN”
(Jacques Brei, Rod McKuen)
Bell 45432
No. 1 March 2, 1974
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Terry Jacks was born in 1945 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and grew up in Vancouver. When Buddy
Holly died, Jacks was moved to buy a $13 guitar, and joined a rock’n’roll band soon afterward. “I was the
worst in the group,” Terry admitted to Ritchie York in Axes, Chops, and Hot Licks. “So I decided to write
some songs in the hopes that they’d keep me. The only trouble was, they expected me to sing them, too.”
As the Chessmen, the band waxed a number of locally successful singles.
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When the Chessmen made an appearance on Canadian TV’s “Music Hop,” Terry met 18-year-old Susan
Pesklevits, a folkie from Vancouver. The two soon pooled their resources, becoming husband and wife
and forming a group called Powerline; later with guitarist Craig McCaw, Winkin’ Blinkin’ and Nod, and
finally a quartet, the Poppy Family. The soon successful act first jelled in the winter of 1966 at a tiny
coffeehouse in Blubber Bay, British Columbia. The idea was that Sue would sing and Terry would work
behind the scenes-writing, arranging, and producing.
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When “Which Way You Goin’ Billy?”–the “B” side of the Poppy Family’s third single–hit big all over North
America (#2, 1970), Jacks was caught off-guard. “‘Billy’ was cut for only $125…. It was simple music,
simple lyrics.” When the follow-up, “That’s Where I Went Wrong” (#29, 1970), charted, Terry called it
quits. “I went fishing for two or three months…. The pressure was incredible.” Terry and Sue split up as
well: “We’d been together 24 hours a day for almost four years, and it was just too much.”
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During the Poppy Family’s travels, Jacks had met and befriended AI Jardine of the Beach Boys. In late
1972, Jardine called Terry to L.A. to produce a Beach Boys session. Jacks suggested they record a tune by
Belgian poet-composer Jacques Brel written in 1961 and originally entitled “Le Moribond (The Dying
Man).” The tune was taped and completed. When the Beach Boys nixed the idea of releasing the track,
Jacks returned to Canada and, with guitar legend Link Wray, recorded his own version of what was to be
called “Seasons in the Sun.” Terry received permission to rewrite the reflective tale’s final verse in order
to lighten up the song.
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“I was out on the golf course with a friend of mine, Roger,” said Terry to author Barry Scott, of his initial
need to create the “Seasons” song. “He said, ‘I’m not going to be around much longer.’ I said, ‘What are
you talking about?’ He replied, ‘The doctor says I’m only going to be alive another six months.’ I couldn’t
believe it… He wasn’t kidding. Roger died of leukemia four months later. It must be terrible to have to
tell your best friend and your father–and Roger had a little girl that you’re going to die. Terrible. So I
rewrote the words to ‘Seasons of the Sun,’ about a young person dying.”
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But four seasons came and went before Terry decided to form Goldfish Records to release his mournful
masterwork. “It sat in my basement for about nine months,” he said to Scott. “I probably never would
have released it… I made it as a piece of art, as a picture I needed to paint…”
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The initial response was staggering: “Seasons” became the biggest-selling single in Canadian history.
Worldwide record sales eventually totaled 11,500,000 copies. Terry met the French legend/tune’s creator
Jacques Brel shortly before his death from cancer in 1978. “He told me he wrote the song in Tangiers, in a
whore-house,” said Terry to Scott. “He said it was written about an old man who was dying of a broken
heart because his best friend had been goofing around with his wife.”
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A few more follow-up 45s were issued–“If You Go Away” (#68, 1974) and “Rock ‘N’ Roll (I Gave You the
Best Years of My Life)” (#97, 1974)–but then Terry seemed to drop out of sight entirely.
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