Terrence Ross Jacks is a Canadian singer, songwriter, guitarist and record producer known for his 1974 hit song "Seasons in the Sun", an English adaptation of a song written by Belgian composer and singer Jacques Brel in 1961. Jacks is also an environmental activist, focused on pulp mill emissions in Howe Sound.
real name: Terrence Ross Jacks
labels: Columbia Graphophone Co. Ltd., Bell Records
genres: pop music
plays: voice
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Terry Jacks was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Jacks was the oldest of five boys and his father ran an architecture business in Winnipeg, a career Jacks later studied in university, before he became a musician. In the early 1960s, when Jacks was a teenager, the family relocated to Vancouver. Jacks took up guitar and at 18 formed a band called The Chessmen with guitarist Guy Sobell. The group had four top-ten hits in Vancouver between 1964 and 1966.
"Seasons in the Sun" is an English-language adaptation of the 1961 Belgian song "Le Moribond" by singer-songwriter Jacques Brel, with lyrics rewritten in 1963 by American singer-poet Rod McKuen, expressing a dying man's farewell to his loved ones, which peaked at Number 20 in the Wallonian charts that September. "Seasons in the Sun" became a worldwide hit in 1974 for Canadian singer Terry Jacks and reached Christmas number one in the UK in 1999 for Irish boy band Westlife.
The first version of the song was recorded by Brel. Set to a marching rhythm, it tells the story of a man dying, as he bids farewell first to his close friend Emile, then to a priest, followed by an acquaintance named Antoine, and finally to his wife, who has cheated on him numerous times with Antoine. Despite being aware of Antoine's role as his wife's lover, he wishes him no ill and instead asks him to take care of her. American Rod McKuen translated the lyrics into English. In 1964, the Kingston Trio became the first to record an English version of "Seasons in the Sun", which was later heard by Terry Jacks and served as the foundation for his rendition.
According to Jacks, the Beach Boys asked him to be their producer during the sessions for the band's album Surf's Up. On 31 July 1970, they attempted a rendition of "Seasons in the Sun", but the session did not go well, and the track was never completed. Later, Mike Love told an interviewer: "We did record a version [of 'Seasons'] but it was so wimpy we had to throw it out. ... It was just the wrong song for us." The recording remained unreleased until the 2021 compilation Feel Flows.
Jacks released his version as a single in 1973 under his own label, Goldfish Records. The B-side featured "Put the Bone In", an original composition about burying a deceased pet dog. The single quickly topped the record charts in the US (where it was released on Bell Records), Canada, and the UK, selling over 14 million copies worldwide.