“Seasons in the Sun,” popularized by Terry Jacks, is an English adaptation of Jacques Brel‘s 1961 French song “Le Moribond” (The Dying Man). Rod McKuen translated the lyrics in 1963, creating a version that portrays a dying man’s farewell to loved ones. While McKuen’s version is known for its sentimental tone, Terry Jacks’ 1974 hit notably altered the lyrics to focus on a friend dying of leukemia, rather than the original’s narrative of a man facing betrayal.

Rod McKuen also wrote one of my favorite poems…

THIRTY-SIX

I live alone.

It hasn’t always been that way.

It’s nice sometimes

to open up the heart a little

and let some hurt come in.

It proves you’re still alive.

I’m not sure what it means.

Why we can’t shake the old loves from our minds.

It must be that we build on memory

and make them more than what they were.

And is the manufacture

just a safe device for closing up the wall?

I do remember.

The only fuzzy circumstance

is sometimes where-and-how

Why, I know.

It happens just because we need

to want and to be wanted too,

when love is here or gone

to lie down in the darkness

and listen to the warm.