Recently on this site
- Of all the early albums the one I value the most
- I’m not there: one of Bob’s most troublesome songs.
By Tony Attwood
In my experience it is hard to find anyone who likes Dylan’s music, has heard the song and yet still doesn’t have something of a soft spot for “Restless Farewell” which appeared on the “Times they are a changing” album. And yet it has only ever been performed twice live by Bob – once in May 1964 and again in May 19998. Unless the data on the official Dylan site is faulty, that is it. Two performances.
So why is that?
Of course there could be some deep personal meaning or memory that Bob carries with him in relation to the song, and that is probably the cause of it being retrieved 34 years after the first outing, but even so, it is a very harsh treatment of such a moving song.
But looking elsewhere I think there is another explanation. For the song is very closely related to “The Parting Glass” – the Irish folk song – and thus opening Dylan up to the allegation of having copied the work.
Now that thought can be challenged with the notion that if it were true, why did Bob put the song on the Times album, (although the fact is that most songwriters will confirm that they have created songs without actually realising that they have utilised phrases or sequences from an earlier piece without knowing it.)
However in this case it seems unlikely that the evolution of a song from a traditional work bothered Bob too much. He had done it before, and it is widely reported that he learned the song from the Clancy Brothers who were friends of his in the Greenwich Village days. Maybe they objected, but only after they heard the song when the album was released.
Certainly Heylin, in his normal way, made as much out of the events, real and imaginary, as he could, for his own benefit. Dylan had taken a Newsweek journalist for a ride with tales of his own upbringing (all fantasy stuff of the type Bob was putting in and out of his compositions at the time) including denying what his name was.
But it rebounded somewhat for although Bob was happy to make up his own tales, he perhaps forgot that journalists are also experts at making up stories for their own benefit (that is to get the editor’s and then the audience’s attention). And so the media responded with the invented fact that “Blowing in the Wind” was not written by Bob, but by a high school student, whom Bob had taken the song from without permission.
Heylin then added that “Restless Farewell” was written in response to the spread of the journalists’ own invented story; but by this stage it is all getting a bit bizarre, and can be ignored save for the fact that it does give us an insight or two into the personalities we are dealing with here and the way music journalism worked at the time.
Songwriters, both those writing a multiplicity of songs in a short space of time, and those writing songs intended for performance by one person – that is to say, not songs that need to be taught to a band, and re-worked to make the arrangement sound ok – can and do write songs quickly, and change the melody, chords and lyrics during the early performances. They are after all only answerable to themselves, responding to the audience in front of them.
But at this time Dylan was writing songs of huge merit and importance; songs which he needed to keep copyright control over, given the number of subsequent cover versions that would be released. In short he had wandered into territory that was not only untrue but also gave him no benefit.
Someone somewhere must have pointed out to Bob very quickly the mistakes he was making with songs of the highest quality, and that his rights as a composer were of prime importance to him – or at least they were if he fancied keeping any of the money that could be made by other people recording “Blowing in the Wind” and “Don’t think Twice.”
In 1994, Blowing in the Wind was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2004, it was ranked number 14 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”. Despite not charting when first released as a single, it has gained much radio airplay, ultimately peaking at #3 in France on the airplay chart.
In June 1963, Peter, Paul and Mary released a cover version of “Blowin’ in the Wind” three weeks after The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan was issued. It became the most commercially successful version of the song, reaching number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and was at number one on the Middle-Road charts for five weeks.
At the 6th Annual Grammy Awards, this version of the song won two Grammys: Best Folk Recording and Best Performance by a Vocal Group. In 2003, Peter, Paul & Mary’s version of “Blowin’ in the Wind” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
But at the time the big story that circulated was the totally 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. It is quite possible that Bob learned from this that story telling can run both ways.
The Newsweek article was published on October 29, and Dylan’s response was to compose “Restless Farewell” which apparently he recorded the day after he had finished composing the piece. He had, it seemed, learned his lesson. The journalists can make up enough stories on their own. They don’t need any help from the composers and performers.