THE SEEKERS – "The Carnival Is Over"

Such a strange song. I actually heard it a few times on US radio when it was first released, and I’m a bit amazed it made the American airways at all. At 14, I was strangely drawn to the bizarre melodrama of it all–much ado about a carnival leaving town, and why couldn’t the protagonist and the lover to whom it is sung ever see each other again? I have since thought that the song doesn’t seem to be so much about a carnival as it seems to be about going off to war–the rather martial drums towards the end seem to suggest as much. How this connects with a carnival, though, is still beyond my comprehension, and even now I wonder if I somehow missed something in this song altogether. But what?

In the end, there’s something perversely inexplicable about the song, its meaning and its affect, so much that it approaches the point of absurdity. For that reason, I can’t help liking it a bit, just as I take an odd pleasure a certain kitsch artifacts.

With that in mind, there’s something in me that would have loved (and simultaneously cringed) to hear Tom Springfield and his sister sing this one. Perhaps I would then be able to understand the song in a way I still can’t.

Doctor Mod

Thanks for the background, Marcello. The English translation of the Cossack song would surely explain the martial feel of it, and why it is truly a “last goodbye.” One even might say it’s grotesquely carnivalesque–but not my idea of a carnival (or a good time)!

Although the Seekers were never as big over here as in the UK (or, indeed, Australia), most people forget that they ALMOST hit the top of the US charts a few months later, when “Georgy Girl” reached #2. One still hears “Georgy Girl” quite often–it’s one of those songs that’s now ubiquitous in stores and fast-food restaurants and other such public places.

Doctor Mod

I always felt that ‘carnival’ was a metaphor for life. Not necessarily all of life, just the bit that was spent with the person who is leaving.

Can’t believe some of the derogatory comments about The Carnival is Over! This has to be in my Top 20 songs of all time – so poignant, with such evocative images (high above the dawn is waking, like a drum my heart was beating, your kiss was sweet as wine) and Judith Durham’s voice so clear and youthfully idealistic adds another dimension to its emotional resonance.

Don’t care what you think it’s about. I like it.

On the way to work today, My Generation by The Who came onto the shuffle function of my iPod and I vaguely remembered when I was a kid flicking through my Dad’s Guinness Book Of Hit Singles. I remember seeing that The Who (a band who I liked very much when I was a child – indeed, I still like them now – likely because my Dad played stuff like Boris The Spider in the car when I was young) never reached number 1 and being vaguely surprised – at least when I was 9 or 10. So, after hearing it today, I thought I’d look up what kept it off the top – and this is it. I’d never heard it – not this, nor the covers – so was intrigued.

It’s perfectly fine as it goes I reckon. It never really goes anywhere musically, preferring to let the lyrics do the dramatising, instead of building to a crescendo of musical emotion (I kind of wish Roy Orbison had a crack at this actually). #7 is right when he compares the drums to It’s Over – the music is probably a good indicator of loss. I don’t think I’d give it more than a middling mark though and it’s definitely no It’s Over, which is a hell of a lot more direct.

It has made me look up at the tracks that sandwiched it at #1 though and sigh with a certain amount of regret. A run of #1s that went Get Off My Cloud/My Generation/Day Tripper would have been tremendous; as it is, I suppose it stands as a testament to the fact that The Who were never quite at the level of The Stones or The Beatles (at least in the popular/singles buying public’s imagination) and is apt in its own way.

On a separate note, if Bombalurina is meant to be for kids, music for children fell a hell of a long way from the mid 60s (Boris The Spider, Yellow Submarine) to the early 90s (Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny etc).

All hell breaks loose: http://musicsoundsbetterwithtwo.blogspot.com/2011/08/feed-back-metal-sound-wire-wood-who-my.html Thanks for waiting everyone, as well as reading!

Robert J Burns @ 15

I thought the one about the mouse was much better, and that Tam o’Shanter was rather terrific. This is not up to your usual standard.

I agree with thefatgit but it will be a cold, cold day in hell afore they address the haggis at high table with anything from yon Wally!

Mmmmm! HAGGGISSS!!!!

meanwhile, over in the USA the number 1 record was another folk-rock number with roots in the past:

http://nohardchords.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/149-the-byrds-turn-turn-turn-to-everything-there-is-a-season/

NELLIE THE ELEPHANT LOSES BEST FRIEND. Since Morningtown Ride didn’t get to number one, I would like to record the passing of Ed Stewart here. We have discussed him elsewhere on this forum but things (especially from those in my age bracket) can happily be repeated. Stewpot defined the childhood of many of us with Junior Choice. I won’t bother listing all those much beloved records, as those of us who were around know them so well. Those grumps who complained of each Saturday show being exactly the same sorely missed the point. The only time I ever had an issue with him was the morning of the 1973 Wimbledon Men’s Final. Britain’s brave Roger Taylor had fallen in the semi final, leaving two Eastern Europeans to contest for the Championship. Stewpot rather ungraciously dismissed the match as an Iron Curtain affair which we would be better off ignoring. With only three TV channels available then, the country chose not to take Ed’s advice.

I actually met him in person. It was at the Oval either in ’74 or ’75 when I was a young teen. Stewpot was playing cricket in a charity match and we all queued up for autographs. Ed was one of the star turns (although I was more impressed with a very drunk Oliver Reed) and we kids flocked around him shouting “Morning!” and “Hello Darling!” After he signed my book, I told him that his beloved Everton were rubbish. He turned to me with a lovely smile. He was everything I had imagined him to be from the radio.

In recent years, of course, Junior Choice returned on Christmas morning and we all tuned in as part of the day. This recent past Christmas was no different. How were we to know that we would lose him so soon after? Ed Stewart was all about making people happy, particularly children. In the last years, as Jacques’ speech regarding the seven ages of man tells us, people of my age and older returned to their own childhood every Yuletide morn. We have now lost our own Puff the Magic Dragon and I for one am very sad.

RIP Stewpot.

Nice song, but as said before, the Arrangement is totally stolen from Roy Orbison’s It’s Over ! ( Same drum beat and very similar opening to it) Maybe a more crescendo ending ( Judith Durham did have a fine voice ) would have given it that extra dimension. No one can walk in Roy Orbison’s shoes in my books though …..

Farewell Judith Durham, a big part of Aussie pop history and the voice of a 60s that hasn’t hardened into myth and reverance. My grandad, born 1944, has insisted before that the Seekers and the New Seekers were either bigger or better than the Beatles. S
Some sort of legacy is that the magic of charity shops mean no one in Britain is ever too far away from a copy of “I’ll Never Find Another You” or “The Carnival is Over”.