Farewell Angelina
Andrew Muir
Angelina".
Here is mine, written at the time of the release of the
box set (for Homer, the slut issue 4).
I presume you all know the lyrics Dylan sang as oppossed
to the ones in LYRICS.
If not please listen to the song first, hell just listen
to the song & ignore my dribblings.
--------------------------------------------
No-one who 'phoned the `warmline' when the pre-release
tape reached Inglethorpe Street could have failed to note
my enthusiasm for this song. Pia has still to recover
from the amount of times she heard the new verse, it was
quite some time before I could bring myself to take it of
the answering message. I know of at least one caller who
'phoned five times in rapid succession just to hear that
snippet. All of this will come as no surprise, for years
this track was the Holy Grail for Dylan afficionados. "It
doesn't exist" "It does exist, a cousin of a friend of
mine heard Stephen Pickering's version" "Baez says he
never recorded it". How many of you reading this bought
Baez's single? How many more bought the album of that
title? How many really did play the single at the wrong
speed? How many others - and I stand excused - bought yet
another Joker album with Farewell on it because the
covers (note #1) claimed Farewell Angelina and this one
might just mean it? And here it was, all these years
later, "really real".
It certainly doesn't disappoint in the face of even
these seemingly overpowering expectations; in fact within
the -ening few lines it feel exactly as I'd always
imagined it would, there was even a gorgeous little laugh
while singing "erupting" at the end of the penultimate
line to conjure up images of the
just-about-to-be-rock-star-with-a-band, totally
compelling and in control solo Dylan we can glimpse in
Don't Look Back.
What I wasn't expecting, though, was a brand new verse;
I also had to adjust to the many changes of lyric from
the verst". How many of you reading this bought Baez's
single? How many more bought the album of that title? How
many really did play the single at the wrong speed? How
many others - and I stand excused - bought yet another
Joker album with Farewell on it because the covers*
claimed
Farewell Angelina and this one might just mean it? And
here it was, all these years later, "really real".
It certainly doesn't disappoint in the face ohe
performance as well, to look for example at the
onomatopoeia of his singing of "flooding over" and
"flutters from fear"...)
In stanza one we have only three alterations between the
lyrics printed in Writings And Drawings. In that
collection the last five lines appear as:
The triangle tingles
And the trumpets play slow
Farewell Angelina
The sky is on fire
And I must go.
What he actually sings is:
The triangle tingles
The music plays slow
But farewell Angelina
The night is on fire
And I must go.
The dropping of the "And" preceding the fourth last line
is a common alteration, indeed it only remains where the
word is actually doing something. This attention to
detail continues throughout the recorded version, a great
deal of thought appears to have been given to the use of
"linking" words such as "and" and "but".
In that altered line we lose the sound of "trumpets"
which had followed on so sweetly from "The triangle
tingles". I must admit that I prefer the alliterative
"trumpets" version although "music" is perhaps more
literally what Dylan had in mind.
The addition of "But" before the conclusion to the verse
is deliberate and effective, it occurs in all but one of
the stanzas from the written version and would have been
inappropriate in the new verse. The purpose of the "but"
is, of course, to separate the narrator's actions from
the scenarios he is depicting; but, as I hope to
demonstrate later, the more crucial function it performs
is to polarise the scenario and the sky.
Which brings me to the last difference, because we have
no "sky" in the performed song's first verse! This is
surely just a simple transposition in Dylan's mind of an
apocalyptic image, I can't discern any change in meaning
or emphasis here, perhaps he even meant to sing "sky".
If that were true, it is an interesting "slip" in the
light of such later songs as Under The Red Sky and When
The Night Comes Falling From The Sky.
The second verse contains some major changes: the
written version goes like this:
There's no need for anger
There's no need for blame
There's nothing to prove
Ev'rything's still the same
Just a table standing empty
By the edge of the sea
Farewell Angelina
The sky is trembling
And I must leave.
What he sings is:
There is no use in talking
And there's no need for blame
There is nothing to prove
Ev'rything still is the same
A table stands empty
By the edge of the stream
But farewell Angelina
The sky's changing colors
And I must leave.
The meaning of the first four lines is not much altered,
they contain standard nuggets of Dylan wisdom of the time
- compare with All I Really Want To Do, One Too Many
Mornings etc. - but in the performed version they have
been shaped to maximum effect. The use of the full "is"
links lines one and three very forcefully while the
change in line four - accentuated very strongly in
Dylan's delivery - throws the emphasis on the word
"is". This stress could not have come at a more critical
time as it directly precedes a major lyrical line
change.
The fifth and sixth lines make up what was surely the
most oft quoted Dylan couplet that had never been heard
from him. When we finally get a take of him singing the
song, it is radically altered. This is initially a shock
both in itself and in as much as the visual image is not
as arresting. There is a very good reason for this; the
written version stands perfectly as an isolated image;
the sung version is stylistically and meaningfully
integrated into the song as a whole. Gone, then, is the
"just" that isolates the image. The most crucial change
of all is from "standing" to "stands", herein lies the
key to the way the song works and the reason behind most
of the sung alterations.
The move away from the "ing" endings here and with the
cross-eyed pirates makes for a much better contrast with
the changing sky. (Flooding, erupting, etc). In each
stanza Dylan presents us with a snapshot scene, a
tableaux, behind, or over, which the sky is threateningly
evolving and forcing the narrator to move on before it is
too late, before he is frozen into the tableaux forever.
A classic Dylan nightmare. As mentioned previously, the
"buts" that are added in the sung version underline the
contrast. (note #2)
The change from "the sea" to "the stream" lessens the
scope of the image, makes it less dramatic. The image in
isolation loses out but by this alteration Dylan improves
the verse as a whole, while integrating it within the
overall song. Perhaps he felt that, for the verse, "The
sea" was too much the equal of the threatening sky and
that the stream would seem more vulnerable. More
importantly in terms of the whole performance, imagine
the fixed tableaux with the "sky changing colours" if
there were "the sea" it too would change colours; there
would be no contrast. Indeed the image would run
counter to the whole song.
(As will be clear from later remarks it is stylistically
surprising that he chose the definite article here, " a
stream " seeming the more apt.)
The third verse has fewer discrepancies. In the second
line "Have forsaked" becomes "They forsake" which is in
keeping with the simple present tense state of the
scenario that I've been at pains to stress. The guards
become singular, a better image; while the change in the
last line from "in a while" to "after a while"
facilities the performance without any change of meaning
or emphasis. It is almost as if Dylan has forced himself
to use the two syllabled "after" by the omission - for
the only time in the song - of "and" as the first word
in the stanza's last line.
If you'll permit me to step out of my self imposed brief
of comparative study, I'd like to make a couple of points
about this verse. Although Dylan is here in the midst of
his most Romantic phase of writing this verse contains a
perfect Classical image of the modern degeneration of the
Golden Age; all cards are now the same, there is no
longer an ace. However he presents the image in a
Romantic light with that image of freedom in "ran wild".
(Dylan's use of language here is breathtaking in its
economy, note the oppositional "file past") The idea of
the cards all being the same ties in with the first
verse's "bell's of the crown/Are being stolen by
bandits"; although the "Royal" cards aren't directly
mentioned these mutually supportive images bring them to
our minds.
The only difference in the opening four lines of stanza
4 is the already noted "pirates sitting" to "pirates
sit". It is worth observing that Dylan opens this verse
with "See" thereby strengthening my idea of "snapshots"
or, the surrealist images he presents, perhaps
"paintings" would be even closer to the mark; given. The
other changes occur in the final five lines, from:
And the neighbors they clap
And they cheer with each blast
Farewell Angelina
The sky's changing color
And I must leave fast.
To:
And the corporals and neighbours
Clap and cheer with each blast
But farewell Angelina
The sky it is trembling
And I must leave fast
The sung description of the sky - the previous verse
having already used "changing colors" - is ambiguous.
Are we to take it that the "blasts" are making the sky
tremble with fear and apprehension or, as would match the
rest of the song, that the sky is trembling with rage?
The introduction of corporals forces a restructuring of
the first two lines above, beneficially as the "And they"
before "cheer" was merely filling the line out. It also
introduces a set of characters at home both in the song
and in Dylan's sixties work. ("Corporals and Neighbours"
would be a good title for a Freewheelin' to The Basement
Tapes compilation.)
In the next stanza we have three changes. Firstly "on
the rooftops" becomes "in the rooftops" which better fits
the way I've always visualised King Kong and the little
elves. Secondly instead of:
While the make-up man's hands
Shut the eyes of the dead
we get:
While the hero's clean hands
Shut the eyes of the dead
There's not much in it here, both have the necessary
cinematic connotations for the stanza, though the use of
"clean" makes the latter a more complex image.
Lastly, the beautiful "the sky is embarrassed" is dropped in favour of "the
sky's flooding over"; presumably because of the use of embarrass only two
lines previously. It is a great pity as the sky's reaction in being
"embarrassed" would have cast great aspersions on the cleanliness of the
hero's hands: giving us an obverse use of the same
cliche to Lay Lady Lay's:
His clothes are dirty
But his hands are clean
Unfortunately also, the next verse repeats the use of
"flooding over" to describe the sky.
Which brings us to that verse, the "new" verse and one
that faces head on the concerns of this particular song
and the central concerns Dylan explored in his great
"classic" years of the early to mid sixties.
The camouflaged parrot
He flutters from fear
When something he doesn't know about
Suddenly appears
What cannot be imitated
Perfect must die
Farewell Angelina
The sky is flooding over
I must go where it is dry
What an extraordinary verse this is, it opens with "The
camouflaged parrot". How are we to take this? A parrot
is a bird known - in some varieties - for its spectacular
plumage, plumage that in its natural habitat is for
camouflage. Yet here there is something very dubious
about the camouflage, I almost hear it as meaning the
parrot is camouflaged as something else. A parrot is also
- indeed primarily - renowned for its ability to imitate
other sounds; coming hard on the heels of the Hollywood
images we link the parrot with major questions of art
imitating life - and popular art at that; just what has
been the purpose of the tableaux Dylan has provided us
with? What is he telling us now?
Well, we know that the parrot is frightened, thanks to that lovely,
alliterative, description: "flutters from fear" and we are told it is
frightened of anything new or unknown The parrot seems,
therefore, to symbolise the merely imitative, the frozen
anti-life of the still painting scenarios, an
anti-creative force, anathema to the artist a breed to
which Dylan belongs.
But, and you knew a "but" was coming, the carpet is
pulled from this comforting conclusion with:
What cannot be imitated
Perfect must die
Your senses do somersaults here; if something can't be
imitated it is inviolate from the anti-life, anti-art
parrot but because then it is in this way "perfect" it
will inevitably die. Why? Because perfection petrifies,
it is no place for the human. It is "the diamond sky" of
Mr Tambourine Man, it is behind the Gates Of Eden from
where no sound ever comes. (Two songs for the album
from which this song is an outtake.) What escapes this
parrot belongs in a place that Christopher Ricks has
called "hell for Bob Dylan" , a place of perfection and
therefore stasis, eternal and unchanging - nothing left
for the artist to create, nowhere for the human to move
onto; the times they have stopped a-changin'.
So is this parrot - timid and imitative though it is -
extraordinarily and paradoxically a force for art and
human values? Is it the parrot's sound that Dylan must
follow in the first verse? Well, yes and no; but
remember his Advice to Geraldine:
do Not create anything, it will be
misinterpreted. it will not change
Now you see it now you don't, a well camouflaged parrot
indeed.
All of this has happened in the lines where Dylan has
been painting his picture underneath the threatening sky,
so perhaps the parrot who flutters is merely part of anot
her tableaux? If so, a particularly telling tableaux and
one that is not separated from the concluding lines with
a "But" before "Farewell Angelina". (The new verse
ironically using the written version's structure.)
We then have a great ending of "flooding over.....where
it is dry" except for the unhappy use of "flooding over"
in the previous stanza. Since there is no divisive
"But", Dylan could have used a simple present, as in "on
fire" here, but the contrast he gives is an irresistible
conclusion to this pivotal passage.
The final verse has a number of variations. The
preliminary two lines have the word "the" dropped from
its opening position. This is perfectly in fitting with
the indeterminate surrealism of the whole piece and is
why I mentioned the expectation of "a stream" in the
second verse. "Machine guns" link with "corporals" and
the pirates who shoot and the pirates themselves link
back to the bandits who steal the bells of the crown at
the song's beginning. Puppets - because of the shared
perspective of height - irresistibly associate in our
minds with "the little elves dancing in the rooftops".
The following lines:
The fiends nail time bombs
To the hands of the clocks
becomes:
At misunderstood visions
And at the faces of clocks
The misunderstood visions are the works of an artist
(note #3), the works Geraldine is advised not to create.
If she does they will be misinterpreted, they will also
never change no matter how many rocks are heaved at the
faces of clocks. They will outlast even the museums where
infinity goes up on trial, but they will be dead.
However are not all artists constantly striving to create this very
perfection, a vision that "cannot be imitated" and therefore "never will
change", "perfect must die"? Is not the song we are listening to such a work?
And is not the singer and the song's creator, Bob Dylan falling into the trap,
ignoring his own warnings? But, wait a minute, isn't Bob Dylan actually Robert
Allen Zimmerman in camouflage? There is a wry little
chuckle as he finishes singing:
Call me any name you like
I will never deny it
But farewell Angelina
The sky is erupting
An' I must go where it is quiet.
"I must follow the sound" to "I must go where it is
quiet". Quite some journey Bob, thanks for the ride.
As you can see I felt the wait well worth it, but, despite all the above, I
wouldn't have it replace any song from the second side
of Bringing It All Back Home.
NOTES:
1. Yeah, I know some of the covers were lovely, but still...
2. Interestingly enough the only "ing" that remains in
the sung version is in the opening stanza where the bells
"are being" stolen, interesting because, although the
grammatical form used here doesn't contradict my point,
the sky here is "night" and is "on fire" not "burning" or
some such word.
3. These lines also have a precise meaning for Dylan as
artist at this stage of his career. It is a powerful
image apparently damning the robot like nature of the
so-called "radical left", America's folk equivalent of a
"oh so liberal, trendy leftie". Certainly the line
"Puppets heave rocks/At misunderstood visions" is about
as economic and accurate a summation of what Dylan was
suffering - and from what kind of people - for
repudiating "finger pointin'" songs as could ever be
imagined.
Andrew Muir
posting - no idea how that happened. As well as
duplicating one chunk of stuff the 'blip' seems to have
overweritten another. It was just saying that I presumed
most readers would know the Baez version or Lyrics &
Drawings intimately & the article would be contrasting
those with the just released Dylan version.
Hope some of you persevered with it anyway.