The perfect song for saying goodbye

IN a perfect world, this column would have dived into the legacy of American rocker David Johansen, who passed away on February 28, 2025, at the age of 75. Or it may have been about Roberta Flack, the gracious soul singer who'd passed four days earlier. Or about Brian James, guitarist and founder of British punk band The Damned, who left us on March 6, at the age of 70. 

I would have written that Johansen was the only surviving member of the New York Dolls, the band that upset the good citizens of America in the early 1970s by appearing on stage in women’s clothes. They released two fantastic rock ‘n’ roll albums, which even worried the Rolling Stones because they sounded less jaded and more sleazy.

But the title of their second album proved to be prophetic: Too Much Too Soon. That some of the members wanted to continue under the name of The Junkies tells the rest of the story. Johansen, however, didn’t fall into the addiction trap and had a brilliant solo career as a blues and rock singer. The AllMusic website calls him “an unpredictable iconoclast and a true cultural innovator”.

I would also have regaled you with tales about Brian James and The Damned, one of England’s original punk bands – the first one to release a single and an album, the first one to tour America, the first one to disband and the first one to reform. James was the main songwriter and riff master for the first couple of years. “Explosive" barely covers the early Damned.

But this isn’t a perfect world. And since this is the last column I will write for Vrye Weekblad, I won’t dwell too long on the New York Dolls or The Damned. Instead, I’ve decided to end this series of music columns with a take on the (now also sadly dormant) podcast I made with my dear friend and colleague Tim Cohen. We called it The Perfect Song For ..., and for each episode we chose a theme (i.e. “The Perfect Song For Subtle Flirting”, or “The Perfect Song For A Road Trip With Someone Who Doesn’t Like Your Music”), and then each picked three songs that we thought would illustrate the subject best. We would talk about these tunes, and agree on “a winner".

So, “The Perfect Song For Saying Goodbye" is my choice for this final column.

As you might have guessed, there are a million songs about saying goodbye. After falling in love, it’s probably the most popular subject to reflect on for a songwriter. It’s universal, everyone has their own goodbye memories and traumas. I asked Tim to send me his three favourite “goodbye" songs, as well as a few lines of explanation. Meanwhile, I thought long and hard about my own choices.

The Beatles' “Hello, Goodbye” had to go, too sweet, too positive. The Triffids’ “Goodbye Little Boy” was a strong contender, especially with the lovely putdown, “Why don’t you leave for good this time, leave me alone, stop wasting my time." But eventually I dropped it, because there were better and more appropriate songs. Even Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right” didn’t make the cut, despite the great lines, “Goodbye’s too good a word, babe, so I’ll just say, fare thee well”.

Dylan is right, though. Farewell is more appropriate than goodbye. Farewell is much more final. Anyway, here we go.

Tim’s choice #1. “Hey, That’s no Way to Say Goodbye” – Leonard Cohen. Tim writes this song demonstrates why Leonard Cohen was such a consummate songwriter, but also the king of pain. His castigation of his lover for feeling sad when he leaves reflected his life-long appreciation of loss and loneliness. For him, parting was “such sweet sorrow, it’s natural; your love stays with me, it just changes, like the shoreline and the sea". Relentless and everlasting, Cohen captured the enigmatic upside/downside of saying goodbye in a single phrase. Sadly, his own version of the song is mundane and droopy; it took a great vocalist like Roberta Flack to bring the song into its own.

Fred’s choice #1. “Glad To See You Go” – Ramones. In cartoonish lingo (“Gonna smile, I'm gonna laugh, you’re gonna get a blood bath, and in a moment of passion get the glory like Charles Manson"), the Ramones describe the (desired) violent end of a relationship. The lyrics were written by bassist Dee Dee, while singer Joey wrote the melody.

Apparently, Dee Dee, who was addicted to heroin throughout his years with the band, was dating a girl who was a junkie stripper. Her name was Conny. They fought a lot and Conny once stabbed Dee Dee in the bum with a broken bottle. After their last fight, so the story goes, Conny stormed out, cursing Dee Dee, who yelled back: “Glad to see you go!" The wonderfully jubilant melody and singalong chorus betray the bitter sentiments.

Tim’s choice #2. “Boots Of Spanish Leather” – Bob Dylan. Dylan, or at least the song’s narrator, pesters his lover on the eve of his departure with what he could bring her; “something fine" from “over the sea". She keeps just asking for his return. But as the song develops, in a way of great folk songs, it gradually dawns that actually he is not coming back, so eventually the lover settles for boots of Spanish leather. The mastery of this folk-music technique on Dylan’s third album, written when he was 22, was emblematic of the power of his songwriting, which was just coming into its own. Sadly, his own version of the song is wheezy, nasal and empty. Nanci Griffith nails it.

Fred’s choice #2. “The End” – The Doors. Not sure if this is a goodbye song, but isn’t the end a goodbye anyway – a goodbye to just about everything? Like most gullible teenagers, I loved The Doors and Jim Morrison’s pompous poetry. We were romantics. Their eponymous album was my favourite, from the classic “Light My Fire" to the cover of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s “Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)”.

Most of side B was taken up by the nearly 12-minute-long track “The End”, which did away with conventional things such as verse and chorus. It’s a meandering, truly psychedelic song, starting very quiet, with Morrison’s near whisper: “This is the end, beautiful friend, this is the end, my only friend, the end of our elaborate plans, the end of everything that stands, the end, no safety or surprise, the end, I'll never look into your eyes again."

Morrison wrote the lyrics after the break-up with a girlfriend (lucky she, such a stunning song dedicated to her), claiming it started out as a simple goodbye song. But then it grew into something much bigger and more fantastical, a nightmare with a killer and an Oedipal section where Morrison talks about wanting to kill his father, and wanting to ... his mother. We can only guess what he has in store for her, because it’s buried in a horrifying scream.

• Factoid: The song was put to effective use in the Vietnam war movie Apocalypse Now. And, of course, it’s a neat epitaph for VWB, the beautiful friend we are about to lose.

Tim’s choice #3. “Good Riddance” – Green Day. In this song Green Day capture the sheer joy of saying goodbye in the right circumstances, a song-writing feeling that goes all the way back to “See You Later, Alligator" by Bill Haley, and “Bye Bye Love" by the Everly Brothers. Its bratty and punkish, like the best of Green Day, but I like the recognition of the inevitability of parting and the gentleness of the chorus line: “It's something unpredictable, But in the end, it's right, I hope you had the time of your life."

• Factoid: The song was used in the 1998 finale of Seinfeld.

My final song (and indisputable favourite out of these six) is one by Songs: Ohia, the band of the late Jason Molina. I could devote thousand of words to the brilliance of Molina, who died at the age of 39 from alcohol abuse-related organ failure. For those of you who are interested, check out this Spotify playlist, and you’ll hear some of the best and saddest music ever recorded: This is Jason Molina 

“Farewell Transmission” is the perfect song for this occasion. It’s built around a single, fluid, bluesy guitar line that immediately invokes sadness and loneliness. The words are pretty desolate too, starting with a description of a bleak landscape. “The whole place is dark, every light on this side of the town, suddenly it all went down, now we’ll all be brothers of the fossil fire of the sun, now we will all be sisters of the fossil blood of the moon," Molina sings.

Since this is a modern blues song, there is no chorus. But in line with the blues tradition, there are repeated lines that work as hooks, such as: “I will try and know whatever I try, I will be gone but not forever." And “Mama here comes midnight with the dead moon in its jaws, must be the big star about to fall."

It’s a song that communicates exceptionally well with this farewell column. My writings were meant as transmissions of my love for music. Of course, I wanted to entertain, but I also wanted to tell you about sounds and songs from a different angle. Hence my pieces about that latest (last?) Rolling Stones album, the Bob Dylan movie, Taylor Swift, the use of the N-word in hip hop, outlaw country & western, The Cure, Beyoncé, Kraftwerk. I also told you about lesser known bands and artists such as Flamin’ Groovies, Johnny Winter, Television and Steve Albini.

I wrote the odd personal story, such as the dilemma of my former punk band and the choice of sharing an album with a band called Rapers, who were accused of molesting a woman. I wrote about my travels to Rotterdam, Texas, New York, California and Venice where I saw a mesmerising concert by my hero Brian Eno.

A farewell gift

Every now and then I wanted your input, using themes like: “What is the best song ever written?" (My choice was “Maybe Not” by Cat Power.) And you responded. Which I loved. And I did also appreciate it that when I appeared “in public" (like at a launch of Ons Klyntji) people walked up to me and told me how much they enjoyed my column. In the end, that’s what it's all about.

But now that’s all over. And it makes me sad, very sad, deeply sad. So as a farewell gift, I’ll leave you with two versions of “Farewell Transmission”, the original by Jason Molina’s band Songs: Ohia, which appeared on their Magnolia Electric Co. album from 2003, and a truly obscure cover by a duo called Brown Bird, which was part of a fundraising Jason Molina tribute called Weary Engine Blues. I can’t choose, although I often think I prefer the Brown Bird version, especially the build-up to that vulnerable moment, five minutes in, where they start the breathtaking climatic fade-out of “Long dark blues". But then I hear the original ...

So this is it. Farewell, dear readers! Farewell, Vrye Weekblad! As Molina sings: “We will try and know whatever we try, we will be gone, but not forever."

♦ VWB ♦

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