Farewell (Bob Dylan song)

Dylan first recorded "Farewell" on February 8, 1963, along with 11 other songs, during a session that for many years was believed to have taken place in the basement of either Gerde's Folk City or the Gaslight Cafe, Greenwich Village venues where Dylan performed during the early 1960s.^[2][4][5] His friend Happy Traum, then with The New World Singers, backed him on vocals and banjo. The recordings were eventually bootlegged under the title The Banjo Tape. Decades later, in interviews with author Michael Gray, Traum identified the session's location as the East Village apartment of Gil Turner, who worked at Gerde's and was an editor for the folk music magazine Broadside.^[6]

A month after the session with Traum, Dylan recorded the song as a demo for his music publisher M. Witmark & Sons.^[2] The demo version, which appeared on several bootlegs, was officially released on the Witmark Demos.^[3] During the time Dylan was making periodic trips to Witmark's Manhattan studios, between 1962 and 1964, he was also visiting Broadside to tape songs for publication. In April 1963, he recorded "Farewell" for the magazine, and a transcription of its lyrics and music appeared in that month's issue.^[7] Also in April, Dylan went to Chicago to appear at The Bear, a folk music club owned by his manager Albert Grossman. The next day, April 26, he was interviewed during a taping of author Studs Terkel's radio show on WFMT. He played seven songs on the show, opening with "Farewell" (the seventh was "Blowin' in the Wind").^[8][9] Four months later during the first of six Times They Are a-Changin' sessions, Dylan recorded four takes of the song, none of them complete.^[2][10]

Only one live recording of the song is known to exist, released on The 50th Anniversary Collection 1963. Dylan played relatively few concerts during 1963. Besides a couple solo dates that year and performances as a "surprise guest" at several Joan Baez concerts, he made appearances at the Brandeis Folk Festival in Massachusetts, Monterey Folk Festival in California and Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island. He began touring in earnest the next year, both solo performances and a series of concert dates co-billed with Baez. "Farewell" does not appear on the setlists from either year's concerts.^[2]

A shorter, previously unreleased studio version of the song was released on the soundtrack of the Coen brothers' 2013 film Inside Llewyn Davis^[11] (although the "Witmark Demos" version was used in the actual film).

Dylan based the song on the traditional British folk ballad "Leaving of Liverpool". He first played it for friends in Greenwich Village after returning from a two-week trip to London in early January 1963.^[12] In "Leaving of Liverpool", the ballad's first verse and chorus tell the tale of someone sailing from Liverpool to California, bound to miss the loved one left behind:

Farewell to you, my own true love;

I am going far away.
I am bound for Californ-i-a,

And I know that I'll return someday.

So fare thee well, my own true love,

And when I return, united we will be.
It's not the leavin' of Liverpool that grieves me,

But, my darling, when I think of thee.^[13]

The opening lyrics in Dylan's song are very similar:

Oh it's fare-thee-well, my darlin' true,

I'm a-leavin' in the first hour of the morn.
I'm bound off for the Bay of Mexico,

Or maybe the coast of Cal-i-forn.

So it's fare-thee-well, my own true love,

We'll meet an-other day, an-other time;
It's not the leavin' that's a-grievin' me,

But my darlin' who's bound to stay behind.^[14]

Obvious similarities aside, the story and sentiments of the two songs differ. In "The Leaving of Liverpool", the narrator is bound for California by sea and promises to return.^[13] In "Farewell", the narrator mentions traveling by highway and trail, with California as one of two possible destinations, neither of them definite. As Dylan's narrator says, "I'm ramblin'...unnoticed and unknown." While indicating they will "meet another day, another time", the traveler promises only to think of his loved one and write from "time to time", without any mention of returning.^[14]

Scottish singer Allan McLeod tells about the time he sang The Leaving of Liverpool as featured singer in an English folk club. Bob Dylan was visiting and sang one song. After the show, he asked Allan to write out the lyrics to The Leaving of Liverpool. One wag has hypothesized that Dylan wrote Farewell because he couldn't read Allan's handwriting.^{[citation needed]}