Byrds - Turn Turn Turn (To Everything ...

Picking apart "Turn Turn Turn (To Everything There Is A Season)" turned up some surprising info. I even got to squeeze in an unfunny pun.

Mono 45 version (3:34)

The 45 runs 3:34. It has a decent amount of reverb. Listen during the break at 3:17-3:18. The last thing you hear before the break is the guitar-reverb, prominently placed over the end of the bass note. Halfway through the break, you can stll hear a remnant of the guitar notes.

The 45 mix turned up first on Columbia's Original Singles 1965-67 (copyright 1980, released on CD 1987). This is an impossibly bad-sounding CD. If you recorded this song off an AM radio onto a cassette in 1965, it would sound better than Original Singles 1965-67.

Better (INFINITELY better, actually) is Rhino's Billboard Top Rock 'N' Roll Hits 1965 (1989). It has a nice dynamic range, decent EQ, no evidence of added noise reduction on the fade, and seems to be from a low-generation source tape. It also runs 3:34, out to the exact point where the 45 audio stops. The same analog transfer is used on:

• Time-Life's 2-CD Treasury Of Folk Music Vol. 2 An All-Star Hootenanny (1996)

And that's it. Just three CDs with the 45 mix. (That's all I have, anyway.)

I think (but can't confirm) that the Byrds Greatest Hits album, which appeared on CD in 1987 or 1988, has the mono 45 version but in fake stereo.

Absurdly narrow stereo LP version (3:41)

I thought it was mono, until I performed a null test and discovered that the instrumentation is in mono, and the vocals are panned ever so slightly to the right. I can get the instrumentation to null out (mostly) if the levels are as-is, and can get the vocals to null out (mostly) if I drop the right channel by about 3 dB. The source tapes are all in bad shape.

The LP runs 3:41, and runs about 7 or 8 beats longer in the song than the 45 mix. The LP runs a little slower than the 45, although it's hard to pin down what the proper speed should be. The speeds on CD are all over the place. The LP has less reverb than the 45. Listen again to the break at 3:18. The last thing you hear before the break is the tail end of the bass note, with essentially no guitar, followed by just-about-silence.

Th oldest CD I have with the LP mix is Sessions' mail-order Freedom Rock (1987), the CD set from the legendary 2-minute TV commercial. It runs 3:41, and sounds pretty good. The same analog transfer is used on:

• Starland Music/Warner Special Products' mail-order 2-CD Golden Dreams (1993)

There's another analog transfer on Time-Life's Classic Rock Vol. 8 1965 The Beat Goes On (1988). The tail of the fade is about 2 beats shorter than Freedom Rock.

Columbia released the full Turn! Turn! Turn! album on CD in 1989. It's a small improvement on what came before and after.

There's a new analog transfer on K-Tel's Seems Like Yesterday Vol. 5 Mid-'60s (1990). There's something odd about this particular analog transfer, as if it used a mono source tape played back on a stereo tape head. The channels don't stay synched well. The same analog transfer is used on:

• Entertainment Weekly's Rock Archives Vol. 1 (1990)

Non-hit 1990 stereo remix by Tim Geelan and Vic Anesini (3:53)

The song was never mixed to proper stereo when it was a hit.

This 1990 stereo remix first appeared on Columbia/Legacy's The Byrds box set (1990). It sounds quite nice, which isn't really surprising. (Vic Anesini does stellar work.) Here, it runs 3:53, presumably out to the end of the recorded take. The same analog transfer is used on:

• Columbia/Legacy's 20 Essential Tracks From The Boxed Set 1965-1990 (1992)
• Time-Life's 2-CD Singers And Songwriters Vol. 6 1960s (2000)
• Time-Life's 2-CD Singers And Songwriters Vol. 19 The Folk Years Blowin' In The Wind (2002)
• Time-Life's Get Together (2002)
• Time-Life's 2-CD Flower Power Age Of Aquarius (2007)
• Time-Life's 2-CD AM Gold Kind Of A Drag (2021)

The same mix, but sped up and faded early to mimic the 45, is on Time-Life's Superhits Vol. 12 The Mid-'60s (1991) and its digitally identical clone AM Gold Vol. 5 The Mid-'60s (1995).

There's a fold-down of the stereo mix (channels combined to mono), faded early, on Time-Life's History Of Rock 'N' Roll Vol. 2 Folk Rock 1964-1967 (1993). The same analog transfer is used on:

• Time-Life's 2-CD Get Together (1994)

Non-hit 1996 mono remix by Vic Anesini (3:49)

This is a new mono mix extending out to the full length of the track, and running at (approximately) the 45 speed. This 1996 mono mix extends out to the same point in the song as the 1990 stereo mix, but gets there 4 seconds earlier than the 1990 stereo mix.

This 1996 mono mix first appeared on Columbia/Legacy's 1996 reissue of the full Turn! Turn! Turn! album. It sounds great, which is no surprise. The same analog transfer is used on:

• Columbia/Legacy's promo Advanced Music (1996)
• Columbia/Epic/Legacy's Pop Music The Golden Era 1951-1975 (1999) - faded early to roughly the 45 length
• Time-Life's Spirit Of The '60s Pop Troubadours (2000)

My recommendations

For the mono 45 version (proper amount of reverb, proper speed, proper length), go with Rhino's Billboard Top Rock 'N' Roll Hits 1965 (1989).

For the absurdly narrow LP version (proper amount of reverb, proper speed, proper length), go with Columbia's Turn! Turn! Turn! album (1989).

For the non-hit 1990 stereo remix, go with Columbia/Legacy's The Byrds box set (1990).

For the non-hit 1996 mono remix, go with Columbia/Legacy's Turn! Turn! Turn! (1996 reissue).

Edited by crapfromthepast

Hykker wrote: I have a roughly 2:30 version of this on a Columbia House VA comp LP from the early 70s. It edits out from the first false end to the second one. I don't know if this edit was made specially for this collection (though nothing else on it is edited) or if it was intended to be a promo edit but not used...3:35 was kind of a long song for 1965.

CRC often made edits or early fades to the songs on their "musical treasury" albums in order to be able to fit more songs per
compilation across multiple formats (my assumption is that they usually they edited with timings for 8-track cartridges in mind since
that was a big sales driver for them at the time).

Good catch! I fixed the wording in the original post above.

The 1996 mono remix has much less reverb than the original 45 mix - an amount comparable to the original LP mix.

The 1990 stereo remix has a teeny bit more reverb than the original LP mix, but nowhere near as much as the original 45 mix.