Dylan Obscuranti: track 7 – Restless Farewell for Frank

Dylan Obscuranti 

By Tony Attwood

This is an imaginary album consisting of both lesser known Dylan songs performed either by himself or (mostly) other people, or re-worked versions of songs which take the song into somewhere completely different.

You can hear the opening tracks on our You Tube channel or via the articles…

And now track 7:

The point of this imaginary album is not that the songs are all unknown – that is obvious already.

But track seven is one that everyone must know, Restless Farewell.  But this one version by Dylan is for me something so extraordinary that it really needs to be on this album.

It was created for the Frank Sinatra Farewell concert, and you can tell at once it is not the normal Dylan performance, for this is rehearsed to perfection – as indeed it needed to be not just out of respect for the honoured guest but also because of the orchestra and band playing together behind Dylan.   The arrangement alone makes this performance a work of sublime art.

Indeed it is for me one of the most magical moments of music that I have ever heard in my life.

The song was part of a trilogy of songs written at the end of 1963 and early 1964 concerning leaving and hurting:

Amazingly Bob only played this song in public twice, once on 17 May 1964 and once on 21 May 1998.  This performance, before the invited audience, seemingly doesn’t count.

If you are interested in reading more about this song you might enjoy “The Dylan Nobody Knows: The Clancy Brothers and Restless Farewell.”

Do you have a tale to tell via Untold Dylan?

We now have over 2000 articles on this site, and many of them are personal tales about attending a concert, listening to Dylan, cover versions, or the individual writer’s own appreciation of Dylan and his music.

These articles are written for Untold by Dylan fans, and if you have a view of Dylan that you feel could be of interest to others, we’d love to hear from you.

To see the variety of approaches we have included in this site, just go to the top of the page and look at the various headings under the picture – each one contains an index of articles on a Dylan theme.  Or look at the latest series listed on our home page.  If you write a piece you can add to these, or create your own theme, or simply send in a one-off contribution.   As long as it gives a different insight into Dylan and his work, we may be well interested in publishing it.

Sadly, we don’t have the funds to pay, but Untold Dylan does have a very wide readership, so your work will be seen by a huge number of people.   If you have an article please email Tony@schools.co.uk   If the article is ready, please attach as a word file.

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And one other, other thing: we also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with around 8500 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link    And because we don’t do political debates on our Facebook group there is a separate group for debating Bob Dylan’s politics – Icicles Hanging Down

 

 

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