It Was 50 Years Ago Today: “The Carnival is Over” by The Seekers
December 8, 1965
“The Carnival is Over” by The Seekers
#1 on the Record Retailer Singles Chart (UK), November 25 – December 15, 1965
As a feature on an English-language website, written by a native English speaker, it’s little surprise that this column has featured mostly English-language hits (with a few exceptions). But while it may be a given that most of the music covered so far has American and British origins, it’s somewhat startling that it’s taken so long to encounter any anglophones from the Southern hemisphere. Then again, for much of Australia’s music history, pop was a one-way street: American and British hits would freely ride the airwaves, but homegrown tunes seldom made the long trek to the other side of the world.
One of the first Australian acts to gain international stardom was a quartet of folk singers from Melbourne calling themselves the Seekers. Even then, they had to leave their homeland for Great Britain to find success, riding a cruise ship (for which they supplied entertainment) to London. There, they met Tom Springfield, a young musician who had previously starred in the folk trio the Springfields, alongside his sister Dusty. Springfield wrote and produced the Seekers’ debut single, “I’ll Never Find Another You,” which hurtled to the top of the UK singles charts and to #4 in America. While the Seekers weren’t the very first act from Down Under to achieve this kind of success — English-born, Australian-raised crooner Frank Ifield had netted similar numbers a few years earlier — they fit the musical zeitgeist in a way that made them genuine youth stars: not quite folk-rock, but with enough freshness and bounce that they didn’t seem hopelessly square.
In this sense, the Seekers could be compared with We Five, another group of pop-friendly folkies fronted by a dynamic female singer. Like We Five’s Bev Bivens, the Seekers’ Judith Durham had begun her singing career in jazz. Once work colleague Athol Guy asked her to join his folk band, however, Durham easily shifted into the more commercial genre. Unlike Bivens, Durham retained few obvious traces of her jazz training. Instead, she showed off an impeccably pure tone and sensitive phrasing, not unlike a warmer, less fussy Joan Baez. As talented as the rest of the Seekers were, it was Dunham’s voice that elevated them to stardom.
The Seekers and Springfield quickly proved their success wasn’t a one-off, racking up global hits like “A World of Our Own,” “Morningtown Ride,” and the undying earworm “Georgy Girl.” Their greatest legacy, however, was one of the few songs to miss the American charts entirely. Springfield had a habit of writing new songs based on old folk melodies; for “The Carnival is Over,” he borrowed the tune of the Russian song “Stenka Razin,” which tells the story of a Cossack leader who drowns his Persian bride in the Volga to prove he hasn’t grown soft by love.
“The Carnival is Over” retains the martial beat of the original, but amplifies the sense of melancholy and lost romance. Now, the story is that of two lovers forced to part, but insisting that they will love each other until death. Despite the slow tempo and the sorrow pervading throughout, “The Carnival is Over” resists the maudlin. The lovers may be heartbroken, but there’s a certain sense of acceptance in lines like “the joys of love are fleeting.” Perhaps it’s better to have left behind a brief but perfect romance, rather than contend with a relationship’s inevitable moments of conflict and boredom.
Despite its poor showing in the United States, “The Carnival is Over” topped the UK charts for three weeks, wedged between a pair of unlikely compatriots: the Rolling Stones’ “Get Off of My Cloud” and the Beatles’ “Day Tripper”/”We Can Work It Out.” While “I’ll Never Find Another You” was initially more popular, “The Carnival is Over” ended the ‘60s as one of the decade’s top-selling singles in Britain. The Seekers earned several more hits afterward, but the joys of success were fleeting, and the band broke up in 1968. Nevertheless, the carnival had not yet ended — the Seekers have continued to reunite on and off through the decades, often playing their signature song to mark the closing of a grand event.
It Was 50 Years Ago Today examines a song, album, movie, or book that was #1 on the charts exactly half a century ago.
