Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST,Ian Gill
Date: 17 Mar 14 - 05:48 PM

John O'Dreams by Bill Caddick takes some beating.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 17 Mar 14 - 06:11 PM

Richard Thompson's "Farewell, Farewell" from Fairport Convention's Liege and Lief. Covered by many including a great one by Danu.
Also a couple of traditional songs "Wagoner's Lad" and "500 Miles".
There's a passle of them. Who's to say which one is the best?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Mar 14 - 06:39 PM

Parting Glass .

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Bert
Date: 17 Mar 14 - 06:52 PM

Not a folk song but was written upon leaving The Getaway one year.

There's never a good time for leaving

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Mar 14 - 07:45 PM

Parting Glass.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST,Padre sans cookies
Date: 17 Mar 14 - 09:14 PM

"The Farewell Chantey" (It is Time to Go Now) was the one the Boarding Party always used.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST,Malcolm Storey
Date: 17 Mar 14 - 09:36 PM

I suppose it all depends on the sort of parting, temporary or permanent.

The Parting Glass or Holmfirth Anthem would do for me on either occasion but for the latter my father had requested and got Abide With Me, a great favourite at sporting occasions as well as funerals.

You pays your money and you takes your choice!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Mar 14 - 11:37 PM

My current favorites are Alan Bell's So Here's To You and Dave Webber's Parting Song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: PHJim
Date: 17 Mar 14 - 11:42 PM

Till We Meet Again

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 18 Mar 14 - 12:03 AM

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
For Lovin' Me
Changes
That's No Way To Say Goodbye
Four Strong Winds

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Mar 14 - 12:12 AM

How about this one from Derek Brimstone]
"We Both Had A Very Good Time"

Cheers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Jason Xion Wang
Date: 18 Mar 14 - 12:18 AM

Someone had mentioned "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right", always one of my favorites.

And "Farewell Party" by Phil Ochs... Or is it Bob Gibson?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Mar 14 - 01:36 AM

The Leaving of Liverpool

~M~

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Mar 14 - 03:28 AM

Love Farewell.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 18 Mar 14 - 08:59 AM

I'll Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal You.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST,PeterC
Date: 18 Mar 14 - 10:52 AM

What about 'Ashokan Farewell' by Jay Ungar? Great tune!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST,PeterC
Date: 18 Mar 14 - 11:30 AM

And Herr Roloff's Farewell by James Scott Skinner - another great tune!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Mar 14 - 12:08 PM

Tak a Dram(before you go)

here by Bob Zentz

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Mar 14 - 12:15 PM

and again, from Bob Zentz.. how to make parting into memories... and anticipation.

Sweet Song from Yesterday

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST,Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 18 Mar 14 - 01:50 PM

As "Hen's teeth" we used to finish the evening with one of Pete Macnab's, "Time call this night a day".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 18 Mar 14 - 03:41 PM

Circle by Harry Chapin.


Jay

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Mar 14 - 05:48 PM

So long, it's been good to know you...
Leave Her, Johnny (good for a band, one leaves each verse)
Adieu to old England

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: TheSnail
Date: 18 Mar 14 - 06:27 PM

Keep you in peace

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 18 Mar 14 - 06:44 PM

I Bid You Goodnight

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST,Tony
Date: 18 Mar 14 - 09:29 PM

Traveling Day
Poem by Jack Aldridge, set to music by Kate Wolf
(last song on Looking Back At You)

It's a travelin' day, you know.
Somehow they just don't start off slow.
I must be up again and on my way.

The leavin' don't come easy.
Long good-byes just don't please me,
when I know that I'll be back some day.

But I'd like to give you
one last fond farewell before I go
to thank you for all we shared,
and I'd like to have you know

this time has been a pleasure,
a jewel I'll always treasure
across the hours and miles of my way.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: PHJim
Date: 19 Mar 14 - 02:04 AM

So Long, It's Been Good To Know You

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: PHJim
Date: 19 Mar 14 - 02:12 AM

Bye Bye Love
Bye Bye Blackbird
John Hartford's Bye Bye

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Mar 14 - 03:15 AM

This could be a long thread.
Shallow Brown.
Bold Riley.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 19 Mar 14 - 09:04 AM

Closing Time by Lyle Lovett

The night's all that's left behind
You take your part and I'll take mine
And go on home
It's closing time

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Mar 14 - 09:46 AM

a vale of tranquility as the curtain comes down.
the starsbrightly greet us as the silence surrounds
each song that we sang fond memory records
like the stars in the night skyall of one accord.
2. the hours quickly passing now the fire gets low
the embers still glowing we stir up the coals
so we sang that last song each chorus a bond
in harmony united all singing one song
3. the fiddlercast aspellsas she bowed away time
we drank down the music far stronger than wine
but the memories live on from the chalice of song
of this night spent together all singning one song.
4. united together combining as one
let us part in agreement through the power of song
all people in peace,our voices concorde
like the stars in the night sky all of one accord
Chorus, Farewell my friends once more as the night gets spent and our voices blend farewell my friends once more
copyright dick miles, available from my website

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST, DrWord
Date: 19 Mar 14 - 01:43 PM

Happy trails to you by Dale Evans. This side of the pond, at any rate.

Happy trails
dennis

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST,Anne Neilson
Date: 19 Mar 14 - 01:51 PM

For Bill D, who posted a link to Bob Zentz's version of 'Tak a Dram' -- YouTube says this is a traditional song, but it was actually written (in the 1970's, if I remember rightly) by Ian Sinclair.

Ian is Glaswegian by birth, but moved to Thurso in Caithness, Scotland, to work in the Dounreay reactor. A fine fiddler, he formed the folk group Mirk with his wife Margie as singer and Ray Crompton on guitar and mandolin. This is one of his most popular songs and the line "Button up and aye be cheery" makes a lot more sense in the kind of temperatures found in the north of Scotland than in the balmy surroundings where Bob Z's performance was filmed!

So, Bill D, if you have a YouTube account, would you mind posting an accreditation of Ian's authorship as it's always nice to acknowledge a creator?


BUT, to get back to the original question, my own favourite is to hear Sheila Stewart - and no-one else - sing 'The Parting Glass', and I can visualise all her lovely, expansive gestures as she draws the audience in until every voice is raised in a recognition of the fragility of relationships if they're not cherished -- "For we may, and might never, all meet here again.".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Mr Happy
Date: 19 Mar 14 - 01:54 PM

What's the criterion for deciding which is the best one?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 19 Mar 14 - 07:02 PM

A song by the late great Davy Steele sung by his son at Steele the Show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xudsYedOFFE

If the link doesn't work cut and paste this ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xudsYedOFFE)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Bert
Date: 19 Mar 14 - 07:11 PM

Goodnight Irene.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Bugsy
Date: 19 Mar 14 - 07:55 PM

Good one Bert. I remember finishing a night at a local folk club with "Irene" and inviting the audience up to join in. After about 8 choruses we had around 40 people up on stage and 2 sitting in the audience. So all in all it worked rather well.

Cheers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Bert
Date: 19 Mar 14 - 10:39 PM

Yes Bugsy, way back in the Fifties just about every singalong finished with Irene.

And of course, depending upon the situation, there is always Eliot Kenin's great song "Fuck off and die"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Bert
Date: 19 Mar 14 - 10:45 PM

Here 'tiz

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 20 Mar 14 - 03:09 AM

The Goodnight Song [Jim Boyes]

Sung by Blue Murder with Jim Boyes singing lead on their album No One Stands Alone.

So goodnight my friends as the dawn comes pale
And the Eastern wind brings the threat of gale
Keep a hold on hope through the darkest vale
And we'll meet further on down the road

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST,Iain
Date: 20 Mar 14 - 04:43 AM

For my money farewell, farewell by Richard Thompson has to be right up in the lead. The purists can argue if it is a folk song or in the folk song idiom.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST,LynnH
Date: 20 Mar 14 - 04:50 AM

John Tams "Pulling down song"? Probably a bit too much fairground argot in it though.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GRex
Date: 20 Mar 14 - 07:56 AM

Si Khan's Here Is My Home

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST,Rogd
Date: 20 Mar 14 - 09:28 AM

Mary Asquith's Closing Time.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Elmore
Date: 20 Mar 14 - 02:06 PM

Rolling Home by John Tams.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Elmore
Date: 20 Mar 14 - 02:11 PM

For All the Good People written by Ken Hicks, sung by Bob Zentz (or the late Fred Holstein)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 20 Mar 14 - 05:34 PM

The Parting Glass. The High Kings.       Be sure to listen to this one all the way through... it keeps getting better!,

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Bugsy
Date: 20 Mar 14 - 07:39 PM

"We'll Stand By The Shore"

Bugsy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Mar 14 - 08:04 PM

Goodbyeee, don't cryeee, wipe tear, baby dear from your eyeee...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: Bert
Date: 20 Mar 14 - 08:10 PM

Tom Paxton's - The Honor of Your Company

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The best farewell folk song please
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Mar 14 - 09:02 PM

So long it's been good to know ya as performed by The Weavers.