Leonard Cohen.

by Englishman 9 Replies latest jw friends

  • Englishman
    Englishman

    I always loved his poetry and music. "Suzanne" and "The Butcher" were a real part of my early ex-dub days.

    He's now well into his 60's and I've just seen a progamme about him on the Biography Channel. He seems at peace with himself now and smiles freely when questioned about his old age.

    I enjoyed this poem of his that he wrote quite recently:

    Because of a few songs
    wherein I spoke of their
    mystery,
    women have been
    exceptionally kind
    to my old age.
    They make a secret place
    in their busy lives
    and they take me there.
    They become naked
    in their different ways
    and they say,
    "Look at me, Leonard
    look at me one last time."
    Then they bend over the bed
    and cover me up
    like a baby that is shivering.

    Englishman.

  • sandy
    sandy

    I wish I saw that special. My favorite Loenard Cohen song is Coming Back To You.

    COMING BACK TO YOU

    Maybe I'm still hurting
    I can't turn the other cheek
    But you know that I still love you
    It's just that I can't speak
    I looked for you in everyone
    And they called me on that too
    I lived alone but I was only
    Coming back to you

    Ah they're shutting down the factory now
    Just when all the bills are due
    And the fields they're under lock and key
    Tho' the rain and the sun come through
    And springtime starts but then it stops
    In the name of something new
    And all the senses rise against this
    Coming back to you

    And they're handing down my sentence now
    And I know what I must do
    Another mile of silence while I'm
    Coming back to you

    There are many in your life
    And many still to be
    Since you are a shining light
    There's many that you'll see
    But I have to deal with envy
    When you choose the precious few
    Who've left their pride on the other side of
    Coming back to you

    Even in your arms I know
    I'll never get it right
    Even when you bend to give me
    Comfort in the night
    I've got to have your word on this
    Or none of it is true
    And all I've said was just instead of
    Coming back to you

  • shamus
    shamus

    The strangest people like Leonard Cohen... he's Canadian, ya know's, eh!

    I have his book "Stranger Music"... a must buy. It's all poetry. Incredible book.

    His songs are haunting, albeit depressing, and I am a huge fan. Ever read any of his books? Read Beautiful Losers and try to make sense of that masterpiece. Sickening yet interesting is all I can say.

  • greatteacher
    greatteacher

    Closing Time is my favorite:

    Ah we're drinking and we're dancing
    and the band is really happening
    and the Johnny Walker wisdom running high
    And my very sweet companion
    she's the Angel of Compassion
    she's rubbing half the world against her thigh
    And every drinker every dancer
    lifts a happy face to thank her
    the fiddler fiddles something so sublime
    all the women tear their blouses off
    and the men they dance on the polka-dots
    and it's partner found, it's partner lost
    and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops:
    it's CLOSING TIME

    Yeah the women tear their blouses off
    and the men they dance on the polka-dots
    and it's partner found, it's partner lost
    and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops:
    it's CLOSING TIME

    Ah we're lonely, we're romantic
    and the cider's laced with acid
    and the Holy Spirit's crying, Where's the beef?
    And the moon is swimming naked
    and the summer night is fragrant
    with a mighty expectation of relief
    So we struggle and we stagger
    down the snakes and up the ladder
    to the tower where the blessed hours chime
    and I swear it happened just like this:
    a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss
    the Gates of Love they budged an inch
    I can't say much has happened since
    but CLOSING TIME

    I swear it happened just like this:
    a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss
    the Gates of Love they budged an inch
    I can't say much has happened since
    CLOSING TIME

    I loved you for your beauty
    but that doesn't make a fool of me:
    you were in it for your beauty too
    and I loved you for your body
    there's a voice that sounds like God to me
    declaring, declaring, declaring that your body's really you
    And I loved you when our love was blessed
    and I love you now there's nothing left
    but sorrow and a sense of overtime
    and I missed you since the place got wrecked
    And I just don't care what happens next
    looks like freedom but it feels like death
    it's something in between, I guess
    it's CLOSING TIME

    Yeah I missed you since the place got wrecked
    By the winds of change and the weeds of sex
    looks like freedom but it feels like death
    it's something in between, I guess
    it's CLOSING TIME

  • hillary_step
    hillary_step

    Mike,

    You know what I really like about Cohen? He proved once and for all time that misery loves poetry, and what is more you can can get rich at it....lol A truly inspiring troubador, who manages to seamlessly move between poetry and lyrical ballad with little if any effort.

    I used to listen to him a lot when I was a young JW and would become filled with depression, not at his lyrics, but at the idea that in the New System when everybody was happy and facile, the only poetry that would exude from us would be those 'praising Jah' for given us straight white teeth and no last names, like the images of New Systemeers in the Watchtower. After all it is very hard to sing a song about the heartache of broken love when you have to grin like that all day.

    HS

  • FlyingHighNow
    FlyingHighNow
    "Suzanne"

    I love this one the best. It takes me back to an earthier time. Good taste there, E-man.

    Heather

  • Robdar
    Robdar

    I love Cohen. I found this on his website and thought it was cool. I have it posted at home, might as well post it here:

    What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love.

    - L. Cohen, Beautiful Losers (1966)

  • Robdar
    Robdar

    Joan of Arc

    Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc
    as she came riding through the dark;
    no moon to keep her armour bright,
    no man to get her through this very smoky night.
    She said, "I'm tired of the war,
    I want the kind of work I had before,
    a wedding dress or something white
    to wear upon my swollen appetite."

    Well, I'm glad to hear you talk this way,
    you know I've watched you riding every day
    and something in me yearns to win
    such a cold and lonesome heroine.
    "And who are you?" she sternly spoke
    to the one beneath the smoke.
    "Why, I'm fire," he replied,
    "And I love your solitude, I love your pride."

    "Then fire, make your body cold,
    I'm going to give you mine to hold,"
    saying this she climbed inside
    to be his one, to be his only bride.
    And deep into his fiery heart
    he took the dust of Joan of Arc,
    and high above the wedding guests
    he hung the ashes of her wedding dress.

    It was deep into his fiery heart
    he took the dust of Joan of Arc,
    and then she clearly understood
    if he was fire, oh then she must be wood.
    I saw her wince, I saw her cry,
    I saw the glory in her eye.
    Myself I long for love and light,
    but must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?

    Anthem

    The birds they sang
    at the break of day
    Start again
    I heard them say
    Don't dwell on what
    has passed away
    or what is yet to be.

    Ah the wars they will
    be fought again
    The holy dove
    She will be caught again
    bought and sold
    and bought again
    the dove is never free.

    Ring the bells that still can ring
    Forget your perfect offering
    There is a crack in everything
    That's how the light gets in.

    We asked for signs
    the signs were sent:
    the birth betrayed
    the marriage spent
    Yeah the widowhood
    of every government --
    signs for all to see.

    I can't run no more
    with that lawless crowd
    while the killers in high places
    say their prayers out loud.
    But they've summoned, they've summoned up
    a thundercloud
    and they're going to hear from me.

    Ring the bells that still can ring ...

    You can add up the parts
    but you won't have the sum
    You can strike up the march,
    there is no drum
    Every heart, every heart
    to love will come
    but like a refugee.

    Ring the bells that still can ring
    Forget your perfect offering
    There is a crack, a crack in everything
    That's how the light gets in.

    Ring the bells that still can ring
    Forget your perfect offering
    There is a crack, a crack in everything
    That's how the light gets in.
    That's how the light gets in.
    That's how the light gets in.

    Humbled in Love

    Do you remember all of those pledges
    That we pledged in the passionate night
    Ah they're soiled now, they're torn at the edges
    Like moths on a still yellow light
    No penance serves to renew them
    No massive transfusions of trust
    Why not even revenge can undo them
    So twisted these vows and so crushed

    And you say you've been humbled in love
    Cut down in your love
    Forced to kneel in the mud next to me
    Ah but why so bitterly turn from the one
    Who kneels there as deeply as thee

    Children have takes these pledges
    They have ferried them out of the past
    Oh beyond all the graves and the hedges
    Where love must go hiding at last
    And here where there is no description
    Oh here in the moment at hand
    No sinner need rise up forgiven
    No victim need limp to the stand

    And you say you've been humbled in love...

    And look dear heart, look at the virgin
    Look how she welcomes him into her gown
    Yes, and mark how the stranger's cold armour
    Dissolves like a star falling down
    Why trade this vision for desire
    When you may have them both
    You will never see a man this naked
    I will never hold a woman this close

    And you say you've been humbled in love...

  • joannadandy
    joannadandy

    Who By Fire
    alt
    New Skin For The Old Ceremony -- 1974


    I love Leonard Cohen. I have to say I wasn't turned on to him until Shrek...(I know a Rufus Wainwright cover--but I am young pup, I'd never heard of him until then).

    Since then I have become a huge fan. He rocks.

  • GinnyTosken
    GinnyTosken

    Were he to ask, I would marry Leonard Cohen.

    My favorite is "Take This Waltz":

    In a dream of Hungarian lanterns
    In the mist of some sweet afternoon
    And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow
    All your sheep and your lilies of snow


    "The Story of Isaac" is beautifully done by Suzanne Vega on the "Tower of Song" cd. It somehow seems fitting for an XJW site:

    The door it opened slowly,
    my father he came in,
    I was nine years old.
    And he stood so tall above me,
    his blue eyes they were shining
    and his voice was very cold.
    He said, "I've had a vision
    and you know I'm strong and holy,
    I must do what I've been told."
    So he started up the mountain,
    I was running, he was walking,
    and his axe was made of gold.
    Well, the trees they got much smaller,
    the lake a lady's mirror,
    we stopped to drink some wine.
    Then he threw the bottle over.
    Broke a minute later
    and he put his hand on mine.
    Thought I saw an eagle
    but it might have been a vulture,
    I never could decide.
    Then my father built an altar,
    he looked once behind his shoulder,
    he knew I would not hide.

    You who build these altars now
    to sacrifice these children,
    you must not do it anymore.
    A scheme is not a vision
    and you never have been tempted
    by a demon or a god.
    You who stand above them now,
    your hatchets blunt and bloody,
    you were not there before,
    when I lay upon a mountain
    and my father's hand was trembling
    with the beauty of the word.

    And if you call me brother now,
    forgive me if I inquire,
    "Just according to whose plan?"
    When it all comes down to dust
    I will kill you if I must,
    I will help you if I can.
    When it all comes down to dust
    I will help you if I must,
    I will kill you if I can.
    And mercy on our uniform,
    man of peace or man of war,
    the peacock spreads his fan.

    Ginny

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