I’ve listened to a number of friends, men mostly, who tried to explain why their relationship or their marriage ended. The reasoning always seemed suspect or convoluted, intellectual or inarticulate. Dylan’s lyrics in Farewell Angelina are evocative, but uninformative, as usual from this phase in his career (circa 1965). But then I don’t expect to find information in song, just as I no longer look for verity in the words of the heart-scalded. That said, one can wake to worse things than the pure soprano of the young Joan Baez.
Waltz before Dawn
I woke at 4 am with an old waltz playing in my head–
the silver voice of Joan Baez singing, “Farewell Angelina;
the sky is on fire and I must go.” Shifting back and forth
between major and minor modes like “sweet sorrow.”
Dylan’s lyrics don’t tell any story or provide any reason;
urges and reasons are only distant cousins at the best.
There’s that in the sunset which just draws one onward
until its colors fade out to the same gray of every ending.
A story might carry on to a reunion or a new beginning,
but a waltz only carries on to the end of the dancing.
The dancers release one another from out their arms
and exit the dance floor to their separate corners.
