"Restless Farewell" is a song by Bob Dylan, released as the final track on his third studio album The Times They Are a-Changin' in 1964. DylanâÂÂs song is based on the Scottish/Irish folk song "The Parting Glass."
Dylan composed the song âÂÂRestless Farewellâ in October 1963, basing its tune and sentiments on âÂÂThe Parting GlassâÂÂ, a song he had learnt from Irish musicians The Clancy Brothers who were friends of Dylan in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 1960s.
The event that triggered the composition of the song was an interview Dylan gave to a Newsweek journalist, Andrea Svedberg, on October 23, 1963. Svedberg pressed Dylan on the autobiographical tales he had spun to friends and journalists since arriving in New York in January 1961. In the interview, Dylan denied his name was Robert Zimmerman and told Svedberg: "I don't know my parents. They don't know me. I've lost contact with them for years." In fact, SvedbergâÂÂs article revealed that DylanâÂÂs parents were in New York to attend his concert at Carnegie Hall later that week. SvedbergâÂÂs article also repeated the false rumor that Dylan was not the true author of "Blowin' in the Wind" and the song had been composed by a New Jersey high school student.
The Newsweek article reached the news stands on October 29, though it carried the date November 4 on its cover. As biographer Clinton Heylin puts it, âÂÂDylanâÂÂs response was fast, furious and unsparing.â He rapidly composed the song "Restless Farewell" and booked a CBS studio for the next day, October 31, to record it. According to Heylin, DylanâÂÂs unfamiliarity with the tune and the lyrics meant that he needed nine takes to achieve the recording used on the album.
Dylan expressed his distaste for the Newsweek type of journalism in 11 outlined epitaphs, the sleeve notes he wrote for the album The Times They Are a-Changin: âÂÂI do not care tâ be made an oddball/ bouncinâ past reportersâ pens/ cooperatinâ with questions/ aimed at eyes that want tâ see/ âÂÂthereâÂÂs nothinâ here/ go back tâ sleep/ or look at the ads/ on page 33.âÂÂâ According to Robert Shelton, the Newsweek interview caused Dylan to withdraw from public life for three weeks, and "resulted in him breaking off nearly all contact with his parents for years⦠Dylan turned from an accessible subject into a cagey game-player who toyed with interview questions, who developed the "anti-interview" saying shocking things he often didnâÂÂt believe."
Heylin writes the original title of the song was âÂÂBob DylanâÂÂs Restless Epitaphâ and so makes plain "this is one instance where narrator and writer are one and the same". Heylin calls the song âÂÂa memorable declaration of independence from âÂÂunknowin eyesâÂÂ, signalling a desire to write only âÂÂfor myselfâÂÂ. Never again would he knowingly expose himself to anyone looking to bury him in âÂÂthe dust of rumorsâÂÂ.âÂÂ
For Gill, Dylan uses the song to summarise all the misgivings he feels about the direction of his life, his work and his career, which, in this song, brim over "into a wistful adieu to his former friends and foes". Shelton points out that Dylan makes time the theme of his song, but contrasts its meaning with its use in the album title. "The singer realises that his times are also changing: "Oh a false clock tries to tick out my time/ To disgrace, distract, and bother me/ And the dirt of gossip blows into my face/ And the dust of rumors covers meâÂÂ. For Shelton, the album was proof that Dylan was âÂÂgrowing beyond anyoneâÂÂs command, choosing his own lonely road to travelâ and Shelton applauds what he calls âÂÂthe confident conclusionâ of the final song: âÂÂSo IâÂÂll make my stand/ And remain as I am/ And bid farewell and not give a damnâÂÂ.
Harvey contrasts DylanâÂÂs composition with the sentiments of the song it is based on, âÂÂThe Parting GlassâÂÂ. The âÂÂIrish song about leaving loves, leaving home, leaving IrelandâÂÂ, becomes, in DylanâÂÂs hands, âÂÂa song about leaving oneâÂÂs current identityâÂÂ. For Harvey, Dylan deliberately reinvented the song because he was âÂÂa folk revivalist, outside of a tradition looking inâÂÂ. The Clancy Brothers âÂÂcould transmit the emotion of parting, but Dylan could never be an Irishman leaving homeâÂÂ.
In 1995, Dylan performed the song live as part of the Sinatra: 80 Years My Way television special, celebrating entertainer Frank Sinatra's 80th birthday, at the request of Sinatra himself. It was the only performance in the special of a song that Sinatra had not recorded.
In 1968, Joan Baez covered it on her all-Dylan double album, Any Day Now.
De Dannan recorded it on their 1991 release Half Set in Harlem.
Robbie O'Connell performed the song as a member of Clancy, O'Connell, and Clancy on their 1997 self-titled album.
On the 2012 compilation album Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International, the song was covered by Mark Knopfler.
List of Bob Dylan songs based on earlier tunes