Farewell

"Farewell", also known as "Fare Thee Well", is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Dylan wrote the song in January 1963. He considered it for his third album, The Times They Are a-Changin', but only attempted a few takes during the album's first studio session. Dylan's earlier recordings of "Farewell" found their way onto various bootlegs, and a collection of demos that included the song was released in October 2010 on The Bootleg Series Vol. 9 – The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964. Over the years, "Farewell" has been recorded by about 20 other musicians worldwide, including Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, Lonnie Donegan, Dion, and Tony Rice. Dylan's recordings 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. 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. A month after the session with Traum, Dylan recorded the song as a demo for his music publisher M. Witmark & Sons. The demo version, which appeared on several bootlegs, was officially released on the Witmark Demos. 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. 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"). 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.