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How about an old fashioned song theme thread?

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A beloved colleague of mine is retiring. I’m looking for songs that say goodbye, please.

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  4. As a folk singer, I pride myself in having a song for every occasion. Many would give you The Parting Glass, but this is my farewell song.
    “And there’s naught that I can bid yer/
    But that peace and love gan with yer/
    Never mind whatever call the fates/
    Away from Hexhamshire”

      • That’s a lovely song. Thanks for sharing – I’m off to learn more about RU&TW. I’ve heard bits and pieces of The Unthanks, but never quite warmed to them (except for The Magpie, used so effectively in the peerless Detectorists). I’ll see if Rachel and chums win me over.

        Also, another vote for The Parting Glass, a song so good that I’d make it my party piece if (1) I could actually sing a note and (2) I went to parties.

        I particularly like the version that rounds off the wonderful Waking Ned:

      • I used to like the “where are they now?” pieces in Q, especially when someone took up a mundane job somewhere, not out of schadenfreude but I just found it interesting. I think musicians keep their hand in more these days as they don’t need a record deal to release stuff and they can book and promote gigs themselves.

  17. Nobody says farewell quite like Jacques Brel.

    However The Great American Songbook is full of memorable goodbyes….

    By the time i get to Memphis

    Fire and rain

    How about a modern Swedish farewell from Icona Pop?

    You’re from the 70s but I’m a 90s bitch.

    Perhaps not quite the message you had for your colleague ?

  19. You want a good, old-fashioned farewell?

    Here’s just the thing. From the 1957 Technicolour film, Seven Hills of Rome, here’s Mario Lanza in the magnificent Piazza Navona, giving it some serious welly.

    Wellisimo.

    There’s a story behind this.

    Mario is singing with a young street urchin, Luisa Di Meo. In typical Lanza fashion, the star had encountered the youngster while in Rome and insisted on her appearing in the film.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Hills_of_Rome_(film)

    The song was written in 1955 and first appeared in the film. It became standard.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrivederci_Roma

  28. Joey Tempest and co liked to say farewell bombastically.. Can this be Elon Musk’s favourite tune?

    Len had a more unbuttoned approach.

    Nice work if you can get it.

    That duet with Judy really is particularly lovely.

    • We used to watch the Julie Felix show, I think it was called Once More With Felix, in NZ in about 1969. I think that’s where I first heard Leonard Cohen. My Dad was apoplectic with lust for the lovely Julie…

        • I watched the documentary Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love last night. I had no idea he was so into drugs during those times. Mandrax and LSD mostly.

      • Julie Felix’s WIKI page is a remarkable read.

        Talk abut beIng in the rIght place at the right time.

        She arrived in the United Kingdom in 1964, and became the first solo folk performer signed to a major British record label when she gained a recording contract with Decca Records, for whom she recorded three solo albums.[4] Her first major break was a headlining appearance at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon in 1965, and later that year her first solo show gave her the distinction of being the first folksinger to fill the Royal Albert Hall, and she was described by The Times as “Britain’s First Lady of Folk”.[4] Her first major break in British television was an appearance on the Eamonn Andrews TV show, which was so well-received that she was invited back to perform again the following week. Felix was also the first pop musician ever to perform at Westminster Abbey.

        In 1966, on the way to the launch party for her debut album, Felix had a chance meeting with comedian David Frost in the elevator of her Chelsea apartment building. Frost – who had recently been chosen as the host of a new BBC topical satire series – accompanied Felix to the launch, and was so impressed by her performance that he lobbied the BBC to include her as one of the two resident musical performers on his new BBC television programme The Frost Report (the other being American musical satirist Tom Lehrer). Her appearances on the series brought her international recognition and made her a household name in the UK.[3]

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Felix

  30. Short and sweet (and lovely) – Jethro Tull’s self-explanatory Cheerio:

    A song with beautiful lyrics about farewells, love, and the power of music – Runrig’s And We’ll Sing, here rounding off their 40th anniversary show to great effect:

  36. The chorus of the Merry Beggar provided Lord Byron with inspiration for a poem in 1817.

    So we’ll go no more a roving
    So late into the night,
    Though the heart be still as loving,
    And the moon be still as bright.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So,_we%27ll_go_no_more_a_roving

    It has been set to music many times by, among others, Donald Swann, Joan Baez, Marianne Faithful and Leonard Cohen

    Mmmmm. That was a surprise. Byron reinvented as smooth, bachelor pad, cocktail jazz. very fitting for a Romantic poet.

  37. Talking of Donald Swann, here is his setting to music of a farewell poem by Tolkien.

    The YT Notes are informative:

    “Bilbo’s Last Song” is a poem by J.R.R.Tolkien that doesn’t appear in his “Lord of the Rings,” but if it had, it would have appeared in the final pages of the book, at the Grey Havens.

    Donald Swann was the first composer to set Tolkien’s poems and songs to music with the professor’s express approval, as documented in the 1967 book and record “The Road Goes Ever On.” Shortly after Tolkien’s death, his publishing secretary shared this poem, given to her as a parting gift by Tolkien, with Swann, and he set it to music that very day.

  39. I just knocked together this playlist from this thread.

    What a treat.

    Earlier in the thread, @thecheshirecat mentioned that there are certain songs, such as The Parting Glass, which are part of the ritual of bringing an evening to an end .

    At the end of every ceilidh organised by the Stockholm Ceilidh, it goes without saying that they finish with everybody singing Auld Lang Syne together.

    I suspect that many bands, like Runrig, have a song which always brings the evening to a close.

    The same goes for club and discos.

    It ain’t over till the fat lady sings…..

    Grace Jones’s Vie en Rose always marked the end of the evening at my favourite disco on Corfu.

  41. As a nation, the Italians really know how to say goodbye.

    Here is the Volare Hitmaker, Domenico Modugno.

    Ciao, ciao, bambina, un bacio ancora

    Bye bye my darling
    Give me just one more kiss.

  44. Another perfect song to end the event.

    there’s no better song for the end of term that Alice Cooper’s School’s Out.

    What a shame he didn’t write one about leaving a job. Work’s Out.

  51. This track by Faron Young is perfect for your event.

    I MISS YOU ALREADY AND YOU’RE NOT EVEN GONE.

    And if you can get yourself a gold-lamé cowboy outfit like Faron’s, it’s going to be an evening to remember-

  55. In terms of parting songs, it crosses my mind that there are plenty of shanties that dwell on parting sorrows and a longing to return. I might add that very often the phrase ‘bound to leave you’ refers to an obligation as an indentured slave. We’re not in ‘woman, I got to ramble’ territory here.

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