....Just Another Tune

Songs & Their History

“Farewell Angelina” & “Farewell To Tarwathie”

Bob Dylan recorded "Farewell Angelina" in  January  1965. It was not used for Bringing It All Back Home  and only released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 1 - 3 in 1991. He gave the song to Joan Baez who recorded it in 1965 for her LP of the same title (Vanguard VSD 90-200, see allmusic.com ).

Dylan borrowed the tune for "Farewell Angelina"  from "Farewell To Tarwathie", the song of a whaler from Tarwathie (Aberdeenshire) who is about to set out for Greenland. It is easy to see that the lyrics also offered him a good starting point for his own surreal Farewell song. 

Fareweel to Tarwathie, adieu Mormond Hill,
And the dear land of Crimmond, I'll bid you fareweel;
I'm bound out for Greenland and ready to sail,
In hopes to find riches in hunting the whale.

Adieu to my comrades, for awhile we must pairt,
And likewise the dear lass wha fair won my hairt,
The cold ice of Greenland, my love will not chill,
And the longer my absence, more loving she'll feel.

Our ship is well rigged and she's ready to sail,
Our crew, they are anxious to follow the whale,
Where the icebergs do float and the stormy winds blaw,
Where the land and the ocean is covered wi’ snow.

The cold coast of Greenland is barren and bare,
No seed-time nor harvest is ever known there,
And the birds here sing sweetly on mountain and dale,
But there isn't a birdie to sing to the whale.

There is no habitation for a man to live there,
And the king of that country is the fierce Greenland bear,
And there will be no temptation to tarry long there,
Wi' our ship bumper full, we will homeward repair,

"Fareweel To Tarwathie" was first recorded by A. L. Lloyd for the LP Thar She Blows! (Riverside RLP 12-635, 1956) which was reissued in the 60s in the USA on Whaling Ballads (Washington WLP 724). At the moment the song is  available on A.L. Lloyd,  Leviathan! - Ballads And Songs Of The Wailing Trade (Topic TSCD 497, 1967 &1998). Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger published it in 1960 in their important and influential collection The Singing Island. A Collection of English and Scots Folksongs (No. 56, p. 63) and it was also included in McColls Folk Songs and Ballads of Scotland (Oak Publication, 1965) although the latter obviously postdates Dylan's recording.

According to the notes in The Singing Island (p. 111) Lloyd had learned it from "John Sinclair, a native of Ballater [Aberdeenshire], in Durban, South Africa, 1938". The melody is a variant of a tune well known since the 19th century that was - in different variations - used for songs like:

• "My Horses Ain’t Hungry", a variant of "Wagoner’s Lad" (see Traditional Ballad Index )
• "Pretty Saro" (see Traditional Ballad Index )
• "Green Bushes" (see Traditional Ballad Index ; John McCormack's beautiful version recorded in 1941 is available on YouTube )
• "Rye Whiskey" (see Traditional Ballad Index ; see Lomax, American Ballads And Folk Songs, 1934, p. 170 )

In fact the melody used by Lloyd is nearly identical to the one used by Pete Seeger for his version of "Wagoner's Lad (Fare You Well Polly)" recorded in 1954 for Frontier Ballads (Folkways 05003, includes also "Rye Whiskey").

The lyrics are an edited version of a text sent to Scottish Folksong collector Gavin Greig  in 1908 and published by him in 1909 in his column "Folk Songs Of The North East" in the Buchan Observer (Roud ID S205060 ):

Farewell to Tarwathie, adieu Mormond Hill
Dear land of my fathers, I bid you farewell
I'm bound for Greenland and ready to sail
In hopes to find riches in hunting the whale.

Adieu to my comrades, a while we must part
Likewise the dear girlie, who has won my heart
The cold ice on Greenland my love will not chill
The longer my absence, the stronger love's thrill.

Awhile I must leave you and go to the sea
Wish luck to the bonnie ship that I'm going wi'
And when I am sailing upon the wide main
Be cheerful and happy till I come again.

Our ship she is well rigged, and ready to sail
Our crew they are anxious to follow the whale
Where the icebergs float, and the stormy winds blow
Where the land and the ocean is covered with snow.

The cold land of Greenland is barren and bare
No seed time or harvest is ever known there
The birds here sing sweetly on mountain and dale
But there's nae a birdie to sing to the whale.

There's no habitation for man to live there
The king of that country's the fierce Greenland bear.
There'll be no temptation to tarry long there
With our ship bumper full we'll homeward repair.

This was published again in 1914 in a bound edition of Greig's columns and  I presume the text was available for every interested Folklorist among the manuscripts of the Greig-Duncan collection (which was published in its entirety only from 1981 to 2002). It  is an abbreviated version of a poem - not a song - written by George Scroggie and published in 1857 (see Copac) in Aberdeen in his book The Peasant's Lyre, A Collection of Miscellaneous Poems:

Greig’s informant was a relative of Mr. Scroggie:

“This song [sic!] was sent by Mr. John Milne, Maud, with a note on its history. It was written he says, by George Scroggie early in the fifties of last century. Scoggie was married to Mr. Milne’s aunt, and was at one time miller at Federate in the parish of New Deer [...]Tarwathie is a very favourable specimen of Scrobbie’s versifying powers” (Gavin Greig, notes, 10.4.1908, quoted from The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection, Vol. 1, p. 501)

Now I don't want to discuss if A. L. Lloyd's informant in South Africa really existed, what exactly was Lloyd's input and who really combined the words and the melody to create the song as we know it today. The available information is a little too scarce. But by all accounts "Farewell To Tarwathie" never had any widespread popularity as a "Folk song", no matter how we define this term.

It was passed on by all kinds of modern media: the book, where the original poem was published (even a rural poet like Mr. Scroggie preferred a book to oral transmission), a newspaper article by a noted Folklore collector as well as records and books by Folk Revivalists. It only started its existence as a so called "Folk song" in the Folk Revival era and I tend to believe that it had never been a song before A. L. Lloyd put together his version. But it seems to me that especially after Judy Collins recorded "Farewell To Tarwathie" in 1970 for her LP Whales And Nightingales (see allmusic.com)  it was established as an "old Folk Song" and today there are at least 20 different recordings by younger artists available.
 

Credits & Notes:

• I owe a lot  of the information used here to the discussion of "Farewell To Tarwathie" on the Mudcat Discussion Board (esp. the information about the Greig-Duncan collection, the note  in The Singing Island, the text of the original poem and the one collected by Greig as well as the discussion of A.L. Lloyd's editing skills; they only missed the fact that Greig had indeed published his text). Thanks a lot!
• The score and midi were created with the MCMusiceditor from the abc-file found at the Digital Tradition Database
• The history of the tune is interesting too. For a discussion see the thread about "Green Bushes" at the Mudcat Discussion Board . But it should be noted that that song was also sung to a different tune (see the alternate melody at the Digital Tradition Mirror ).
• Patrick Shuldham-Shaw & Emily B. Lyle (ed.), The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection, Vol. 1, Aberdeen 1981
• Thanks once more to three excellent and indispensable databases: The Traditional Ballad Index , The Folk Music Index To Recordings and The Roud Folksong Index
• Other sites discussing "Farewell To Tarwathie": Henry's Songbook , (Mostly) English Folk Music 
• About Tarwathie: see this site :
  "There are actually three farms near Strichen having the name Tarwathie (North Tarwathie, South Tarwathie, and West Tarwathie), and no one has yet discovered from which farm the man in the poem might have come. Seafaring was, however, a popular form of livelihood in that part of Scotland, most of the farms, including West Tarwathie, being rather small and unlikely to support growing families. The closest ports then supporting large fishing fleets were Fraserburgh to the north and Peterhead to the east [...] In 1851, just six years before George Scroggie published his little book of poetry, there were perhaps close to a dozen whalermen from Aberdeenshire, any one of whom might have been the person in "Farewell to Tarwathie," intending "To follow the whale." 

[first posted in February 2009 on www.morerootsofbob.com]

© Jürgen Kloss
2009/2010