1965 The Seekers: The Carnival Is Over

'The Carnival Is Over' first came to my attention in 1986 via Nick Cave's cover version on 'Kicking Against The Pricks', though the tune was already familiar to me from a hymn our school used to sing at morning Assembly. For these reasons and more I'd kind of assumed that it was an old folk tune that The Seekers had dusted off so it came as no small surprise to find out that the band's Tom Springfield actually wrote it. And after being seduced by Cave's take that suggested all manner of doom laden partings, it came as no small disappointment to realise that the reference to "Pierrot and Columbine" in the lyrics makes the song more literal than metaphorical, with the 'carnival' not being representative of good times now over but an actual troupe packing up and leaving town. Which at a stroke divests it of much of its appeal as surely as if it transpired 'Like A Rolling Stone' was actually about boulders tumbling down a mountain.

So, fatally holed then? Well not really - no longer believing in Santa doesn't mean I can't still enjoy Christmas and Judith Durham's voice is always a delight, but at the same time I can't help but believe that The Seekers don't know how to play their own song. "How it breaks my heart to leave you, now the carnival is gone" - Mr Cave knew how to wring these lyrics till they wept, but The Seekers deliver it with the mannered emotional charge of the campfire singalong that characterised most of their output (I think that B side is very, very telling). And maybe that's the problem - Cave could record 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep' and make it sound like the end of the world so perhaps there was always something too 'up' and sunny about The Seekers to do maudlin properly.