What does Seasons in the Sun mean?

Terry Jacks: Seasons in the Sun Meaning

Album cover for Seasons in the Sun album cover

Song Released: 1974


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Seasons in the Sun Lyrics

Goodbye to you, my trusted friend.
We've known each other since we're nine or ten.
Together we climbed hills or trees.
Learned of love and ABC's,
skinned our hearts and skinned our knees.
Goodbye my friend, it's hard to die,
when all the...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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    Jan 16th 2019 !⃝

    I always thought it was about a young man who went wrong in life didn't want to die but to much wine to much song made him make mistakes always thought it was about some one on death row who was waiting on execution

  2. 2TOP RATED

    #2 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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    Oct 10th 2011 !⃝

    "The song was based on an original called 'Le moribond' by Jacques Brel it’s a goodbye song about a person who is sure of meeting up with his death soon. He thanks all the people responsible for lovely memories in his life. He first bids goodbye to his friends, the dear friends who he spent most of his life with when he was a kid. He tells them when to remember him. He then sort of apologises and bids farewell to his father.
    “Goodbye Michelle my little” could be his loves or wife or daughter and Terry Jacks thanks her for being the light in his life. The lyric points out the key part song to who he is singing to, he describes their names such as “papa”. The song is basically about realizing “dying time is here”.
    He is dying and has made his peace by trying to relieve his family and friends of the guilt that they feel by telling his father he did do his best, “you tried to teach me right from wrong”. He’s saying goodbye to his closest friend remembering times they spent.
    The chorus part symbolises the different time in his life and “the wine and the song like the seasons have all gone” says that all these phases of life will come to an end with the ultimate end, which is his death. “now that the spring is in the air with the flowers everywhere” is the time when he has to go, but the looking at the stars
    Personally for me this song is amazing. It sounds like a man realizing that even with all the wonderful memories, such as family and friends there’s a time when you have to let go. It’s a very touching song its highly recommended to people that experienced loss and death in their lives.

  3. 3TOP RATED

    #3 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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    Jun 17th 2011 !⃝

    You know when someone Close to you passes away and you feel almost Guilty? like you weren't there for them enough? i think the songs is about a man who is dying and has made his peace but he's trying to releave his family and Friends of the Guilt that they feel by telling his father that He did do his best, (you tried to teach me right from wrong)and saying goodbye to his closest friend remembering times they spent then gets to his daughter and is apologetic because he wont be able to be there for her

    thats just what i think it means

  4. anonymous
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    Apr 30th 2023 !⃝

    A soldier dying in the jungles of Vietnam, balancing the story of his privileged naive childhood to the gory realities of war in a jungle saturated with the sanctioned death of the youth of both our countries.

  5. anonymous
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    Sep 30th 2022 !⃝

    My dad died 1972 when my brother was six, I was five, my younger sis was 3 and baby brother 1. I first heard this song when I was about 8, in 2nd grade. Dad had been gone 3 yrs by then.
    My dad died of a diabetic coma out in the woods when he went hunting alone. We had people search for him and they brought him home. I never had a chance to say goodbye, he was just gone. It left a big hole in our lives.
    This song made me feel better, like it was him saying goodbye. I felt that he didn't want to go; he'd had fun times with us, but that he had to. After all, my dad had black hair, like a black sheep.
    When I got a little older, I found the piano music in the store. I was excited and brought it home. I picked it out on the keys and my sis and I would haltingly sing at as I tried the notes. It was my mother who was the good piano player though. She didn't like this song, probably bc it was painful. I never heard her play it.
    She never remarried and died 48 yrs later. I play this song now for her, and for him; glad that they are finally reunited.

  6. anonymous
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    Jun 5th 2019 !⃝

    There is no doubt to me,it is about Male depression and mental health. Life became dark for him and ultimately too much. Although he had good childhood memories depression took over and he could see no way forward. It is such a sad song of a desperately depressed man who loved people deeply, feels guilty and is reliving his sunny,carefree,happy childhood days before committing suicide.

  7. anonymous
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    May 12th 2019 !⃝

    The soon to be dead man has made peace with himself . He is grateful to life,for all the things life has offered him irrespective of how he has been. He has accepted his fate and attained contentment,even though it is not easy to give up the lust of life ...

  8. anonymous
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    Aug 28th 2018 !⃝

    I always thought it was a suicide letter but now reading all the interpetrations by other people i realise it is not.

  9. anonymous
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    Apr 20th 2018 !⃝

    A goodbye song to his closest freinds and realatives who he will miss along with missing the beauty of nature which ate closely tied to these loved ones. A very emotional perspective of his life on Earth which, every time i hear it, causes me to break a tear. JRP

  10. anonymous
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    Apr 17th 2018 !⃝

    I see the song as a suicide note about a man that is about to cause his own death.

  11. anonymous
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    Feb 23rd 2018 !⃝

    Amazing song! It's obvious this is from a man's memory of his life- a child, becoming a man,and to his daughter. Any time, is a terrible time to die.His description of fun,children, birds singing, flowers, spring, pretty girls, etc.- he definitely would have preferred not to die! But the hills that we climbed, were just seasons out of time!- Wow! I wish that we could both be there!

  12. anonymous
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    Feb 20th 2018 !⃝

    It's a very touching song that i've ever heard. Although i don't really catch the meaning,but i love to listen to.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  13. anonymous
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    Feb 15th 2018 !⃝

    A man on death row - he was the black sheep of the family

  14. anonymous
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    Dec 12th 2017 !⃝

    It seems to me this is a song about youth, 2 young friends who spent a lot of fun times together and his friend died too early. The singer misses his friend. My son tragically died right before he turned 20. His friend misses him. They had so many experiences together way before 9 and 10. Their life started together 3 and 4, and lasted until my Taylor's death, almost 20. "Learned of love and abc's, skinned our hearts and skinned our knees." Sounds like young devastated boys who suffered a bad loss to me.

  15. anonymous
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    Oct 14th 2017 !⃝

    It's about the first Seder and when Jesus met Pan and together they help mary with he little lamb and also wrot the movie brokeback mountain

  16. anonymous
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    Aug 4th 2017 !⃝

    This song came out in 1974, when I was a second year Med student. I was single, married to my books..but the song absolutely haunted me, for reasons I couldn't fathom. In 2002, my first child, a daughter, took her own life at age 21.She was the subject of the song. "Goodbye Papa please pray for me, I was the black sheep of the family...Too much wine..." our last name is Wool. My daughter was so sweet and loving, but mental illness and drugs changed all that. I am too rooted in science and practicality to believe that I could have known anything about her life 6 years before her birth, but it sure makes me think, and the song still haunts me every time it plays.

  17. Namesake
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    Apr 6th 2017 !⃝

    I was born the year this song was released. Before my mother died she told me a story. A true story. She said that I had a cousin, on my father's side of the family, who was killed not long before I was born. He was attending high school at the time. He was my mother's favourite family member. She said he was always heavily abused by his parents while growing up. He was very polite and respectful. Very talented, and liked art. She said that one day in art class they had to sketch something. So, he looked out the window of the classroom and sketched, in great detail, a very old building that was across the street from the school. He received perfect marks for the sketch. He had sketched it brick by brick, shadowing each detailed part of the building. The next day, while leaving school to go home, he was crossing the street and was struck dead by a speeding vehicle that blew a stoplight. The town was in complete shock at what had happened. It turned out his body was later brought to the exact building he had sketched the day before his death, for it was a funeral home. And this particular song was playing on the radio the very moment my mother received the news that he was dead. After I was born, she had named me after him ... first, middle and last name exactly.

  18. anonymous
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    Sep 14th 2016 !⃝

    Someone knowing that the end is near.Saying goodbye to the people that he loved.

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