ABSTRACT
Within the art of emancipating rejection that I have been tracing, the explicit activity of leave-taking is an important and primary type of gesture or trope. It would be easy to fill pages quoting lines and songs that are organised around moments of leaving, as in ‘Song to Bonny’, ‘I Was Young When I Left Home’, ‘Liverpool Gal’, ‘It Ain’t Me, Babe’, ‘Restless Farewell’, ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’, ‘Most Likely You Go Your Way (and I’ll Go Mine)’, and so on throughout his career. Broadly, Dylan’s songs predominantly treat love not as a present fact but as something that is over or yet to happen. The following examples are respectively from ‘Long Time Gone’, ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’, and ‘Farewell’: Just give to me my gravestone With it clearly carved upon: ‘I’s a long time a-comin’ An’ I’ll be a long time gone’ (Lyrics, 29) I’m walkin’ down that long, lonesome road, babe Where I’m bound, I can’t tell But goodbye’s too good a word, gal So I’ll just say fare thee well (Lyrics, 61) So it’s fare thee well my own true love, We’ll meet another day, another time. (Lyrics, 48)
