Joan Baez’s Ethereal Goodbye: Farewell, Angelina Weaves a Timeless Spell – A Surreal Farewell to Love Amid a World Unraveling
In October 1965, Joan Baez released “Farewell, Angelina” as the title track of her sixth album, Farewell, Angelina, which peaked at number 10 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart, a testament to her evolving artistry on Vanguard Records. While the single itself didn’t chart independently in the U.S., its UK release on Fontana Records stirred quiet waves, and the album’s gold status—over a million copies sold—spoke volumes of its resonance. For those of us who came of age with it—huddled around a turntable in a dim dorm room or catching her crystalline voice on a late-night radio—it was a song that felt like a secret shared under the stars, a moment when folk met something bigger, something electric. Now, in 2025, as I sit with the soft creak of time in my chair, “Farewell, Angelina” floats back—a haunting keepsake from an era when music dared to dream, and Joan was our guide through the haze of a changing world.
The story behind “Farewell, Angelina” is a handoff from one legend to another. Written by Bob Dylan in early ’65, it was an outtake from his Bringing It All Back Home sessions—left on the cutting room floor, maybe too strange, too raw, until he gave it to Joan, his then-muse and lover. She recorded it at New York’s Vanguard Studios with producer Maynard Solomon, her voice soaring solo at first, then joined by Bruce Langhorne’s electric guitar—a first for her—plus Russ Savakus on bass and Ralph Rinzler on mandolin, a subtle nod to the folk-rock tide Dylan had already ridden. Dylan’s own take stayed locked away until 1991’s The Bootleg Series, leaving Joan’s version as the one we knew, the one we sang. Released as the Vietnam War loomed and the ‘60s trembled with unrest, it was a bridge between her acoustic roots and a bolder sound, a shift that mirrored our own steps into a decade of upheaval. She’d revisit it live—on Live Europe ‘83 and beyond—each rendition a thread tying her to that moment.
The meaning of “Farewell, Angelina” is a tapestry of surreal loss—it’s a voice, maybe Joan’s, maybe ours, bidding adieu to Angelina, a lover or a symbol, as chaos swirls: “The bells of the crown are being stolen by bandits, I must follow the sound.” Dylan’s lyrics paint a dreamscape—tables empty by the sea, cross-eyed pirates, King Kong dancing with elves—while the sky shifts from fire to eruption, a restless farewell to something slipping away. “Farewell, Angelina, the sky is on fire, and I must go,” she sings, and it’s less a choice than a pull, a quiet resignation to leave a world folding in on itself. For those of us who leaned into it back then, it was the sound of autumn leaves skittering down a quiet street, of sitting by a window as the light faded, wondering what we’d lose next. It’s not just a goodbye—it’s a drift into the unknown, her voice a lantern in the fog, steady even as the ground quaked beneath us.
Joan Baez was folk’s high priestess, and “Farewell, Angelina”—with its four Dylan covers—marked her leap from tradition to a new frontier, a path she’d widen with later works like Diamonds & Rust. I can still see it—the LP sleeve worn at the edges, Richard Avedon’s stark cover shot, the way we’d trace her words in the air, feeling their weight. For older souls now, it’s a bridge to 1965—of corduroy jackets and protest signs, of a time when every song was a mirror, and Joan held it up to our restless hearts. “Farewell, Angelina” remains—a fragile, fierce echo of a woman who sang the surreal with grace, leaving us to ponder what we left behind when the sky caught fire.