What does the image of "where have all the flowers gone?" mean to you?

I think it is necessary for the circular nature of the song. it also may be a metaphor for innocence.

I already knew where the words came from, or the inspiration rather. I have trouble seeing it as anything else

It reminds me of the beauty in the world being taken away.

YMCA summer camp

Nuclear winter.

That one song by The Talking Heads, maybe it’s called Nothing But Flowers.

It’s an anti-war song from 1961

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE
words and music by Pete Seeger
performed by Pete Seeger and Tao Rodriguez-Seeger

Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
Girls have picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young girls gone?
Taken husbands every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

As @crisw pointed out, it is used for the cyclical nature of the song, which brings home the endless cycle of war, recovery and war again. The question of where all the flowers have gone takes on added meaning with the loss of natural habitats.

@galileogirl Thank you for the lyrics.

Asphalt and pollution.

@galileogirl: Thank you, Captain Obvious.

The cyclical structure and repetitiveness are what resonate the most to me. I also associate it with the Kingston Trio more than with the Mamas and the Papas, but I think that’s because my dad played it for me a lot when I was younger.

@TitsMcGhee If you don’t stop being so nice to me I’m going to start believing Blondesion.

I remember the Peter, Paul and Mary version the best and it became the biggest in the mid-60’s when I was in high school and the war was getting worse.

It doesn’t mean a thing to me.

I made a Peter, Paul and Mary CD for my 6 yr old daughter to listen to during rest time. I left out “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” because I thought it would be too sad for her. But she noticed it was missing, and told me she liked it. I asked her if she knew what it was about. She said that all the flowers were gone because the women picked them and put them on their husbands graves.

Oh, the beauty of a 6 yr old mind, and heart.

I actually always thought of the flowers representing the “natural” aspect of life. In recent centuries, we have been trained to go to school, grow up, serve our nation in a war, have children and they’ll repeat. Our culture has destroyed free will or the nature to explore new avenues and embraces how things are “supposed to be.” Ex: It is expected that we attend 18 years of grade school, then go to college or military, then have children and train them to do the same. What if schools prepared you to live instead of prepared you to get jobs? Then we would be less fearful of losing our jobs in a bad economy. We would know how to survive without a job for at least a while- until we found a new one. That way no money wouldn’t = no food. Or what if there was another option altogether? Why are we so dependent on “the way things are?”

That was sort of a tangent, but in summary:

The flowers in the song to me represent the natural roads of opportunity that we wipe out (pick) every time we conform and follow the life formula set forth by generational repetition. This results in a never ending need for war. And college.

A good compliment song to this one is “Little Boxes.”

I associate Where Have all the Flowers Gone with The Kingston Trio and the Viet Nam war. SimpleD’s six year-old summed up my thoughts on the song very well, the flowers are on the graves of the soldiers killed in war.

@daloonagain
I like that you asked this question as much as the question itself. I’m glad you decided to come back. You are much appreciated
One of my oldest memories was this image of a little girl in a field. It was a haunting scene stuck in my head and years later, I found this and realized that it was my memory. It’s a shame that it was propoganda to continue the war though. I must have seen it as some sort of repeat or documentary though because I wasn’t born until 1967.

what is this??????/

@Yoshani
Here’s a repost
It was an ad campaign that Lyndon Johnson used for his re-election campaign. I liked LBJ but the atmosphere of fear in the country caused us to stay in Vietnam for another 10 years.