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Dance me to Leonard Cohen — 33 Comments

  1. Neo, your description of the video of “Dancing To The End Of Love” reminds me of my favorite part of the film “When Harry Met Sally”–the vignettes of the “couples” describing how they met and came together. Priceless. As for Cohen, I’m with you–almost anyone and everyone can do his songs better, but then again, he’s like Dylan: some of his songs are fit to be sung only by him.

  2. There was a marvelous tribute album called Tower of Song, which I think came out some dozen years ago, which I immediately snapped up, curious about various songs, but mostly, curious of how disparate musicians and vocalists like Willie Nelson, The Chieftains, Aaron Neville and Tori Amos (to name a few) handled Cohen, and being young and not familiar with Cohen’s presence in a performance found the tribute album to be wonderful. Bono’s cover of Hallelujah in particular still echoes in my memory, though the album long has since passed from my possession. As I aged, the originals grew in my mind, hearing how Cohen handled his lyrics. It is as they say an acquired taste. But once acquired it can be marvelous.

  3. Whether you love or loathe Leonard, you must hear “Leonard Cohen’s Day Job” from the Austin Lounge Lizards album Employee of the Month

    These guys really make me laugh – and think…

  4. “The word “hypnotic” seems to have been coined just to describe him. He doesn’t just sing; he weaves a spell, and strange as his delivery and stage presence is, it works.”

    Yep. Kinda like Harry Chapin.

  5. Cohen was off my 48-year-old radar until about 5 years ago. Saw McCabe and Mrs Miller, and fine movie that is, but who was that singer? What was that song?

    Cut to a few years later. I and some of my friends have been known to frequent the grayer areas of the Net. I must have received 8 versions of Hallelujah. Fav is the one by Buckley. Played now and again on Radio Paradise, also.

    Kinda like this song, too much:

    Oh the women tear their blouses off
    and the men they dance on the polka-dots
    It’s CLOSING TIME
    And it’s partner found, it’s partner lost
    and it’s hell to pay when the fiddler stops
    It’s CLOSING TIME
    I swear it happened just like this:
    a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss
    It’s CLOSING TIME
    The Gates of Love they budged an inch
    I can’t say much has happened since
    But CLOSING TIME
    I loved you when our love was blessed
    I love you now there’s nothing left
    But CLOSING TIME
    I miss you since the place got wrecked
    By the winds of change and the weeds of sex.

  6. youtube.comKinda like that song too, Alear — here’s
    the video. With the two women, and the slow smile at the end.

    The only songwriter/poet in the same league as Cohen is that other old guy, Dylan.

  7. I tried to like Leonard Cohen, I really did, even bought an album. But you know what? He SOUNDED SO DEPRESSED that even a depressed teenager like me couldn’t listen for very long. And I wondered, Is he just acting this way to get laid? What did I know.

  8. therapydoc: Well, if what I’ve read is correct, if that was his motivation, it most assuredly worked.

    As I said, the key is to watch his videos, especially the ones from the 80s on.

    And, perhaps, to be a woman.

  9. This is my favorite. Wistful, mournful imagery:

    Your faith was strong but you needed proof
    You saw her bathing on the roof
    Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew her
    She tied you
    To a kitchen chair
    She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
    And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

    Hallelujah, Hallelujah
    Hallelujah, Hallelujah

    You say I took the name in vain
    I don’t even know the name
    But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
    There’s a blaze of light
    In every word
    It doesn’t matter which you heard
    The holy or the broken Hallelujah

    Hallelujah, Hallelujah
    Hallelujah, Hallelujah

    I did my best, it wasn’t much
    I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
    I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
    And even though
    It all went wrong
    I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
    With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

    Hallelujah, Hallelujah
    Hallelujah, Hallelujah
    Hallelujah, Hallelujah
    Hallelujah, Hallelujah

  10. I had never paid much attention to Leonard Cohen, but “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” was always one of my favorite movies, and I did like his songs on the soundtrack.

    Sometime in the early 90’s, when “The Future” was released, I happened to read a review of it in my local newspaper. The article mentioned that he was embarking on his first tour in however many years, so I went and bought a ticket. The concert was excellent, and I’m glad to have had the opportunity to see him live.

    As for the claims that anybody can sing his–or Dylan’s–songs better than they can: Nope. Not by a long shot. I’m not buying it.

  11. Nice post. I rediscovered Cohen I guess in the mid-90’s on the album “The Future” (which is where I found the song quoted above–CLOSING TIME). The whole album was good! My thumbnail observations are 1) He hasn’t lost a bit of artistic juice, in fact has gained a lot of depth and mature passion 2) The really depressed side may have lifted, but what I’d say is that a lot of the masochistic morose-ness is just gone, and not least 3) better musical production values help a LOT, album-wise.

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  13. I have always loved Leonard Cohen, but when I bought ten new songs, in the nineties (I think. The last few years are a blur) I found myself listening to it over and over again, not as a background to work or reading, but for itself. It has the … feel of aged port sipped slowly. Sweet and biting and with the sense of accumulated years. Since then I’ve bought The Future and Dear Heather (the last of which has the song On That Day which never fails to reduce me to blubbering tears.)

    The funny thing is, as much as I liked the earlier Leonard Cohen his later ones are so much better that the earlier ones feel unfinished and brash to me. Like he was only on his way to where he is now and not “complete.”

    May we all improve with age, likewise.

  14. I’ve liked him since I was in High School in the mid-70s.

    I still can’t walk past Clinton St. without thinking of “Famous Blue Raincoat.”

  15. This is a moving post that reflects my own feelings about Leonard Cohen’s music. Fans might be interested to know that Cohen’s first three albums will be reissued on April 24, 2007 with remastered songs, fresh liner notes, and some previously unreleased tracks. I posted a few details about the reissues at Cohen and Anjani Reissues. I’m also a fan of his girlfriend (AKA Anjani) and posted a review of “Blue Alert,” her album of Cohen material, at Music Recommendation That Will Make You Want To Kiss Me

  16. Wow! It’s great to see this Cohen resurgence in blogland.

    I’m an aspiring songwriter in my 20s living in San Francisco (I’m also conservative, BTW) and in the last year or so Cohen has joined Dylan as one of my primary inspirations. There is such a focused universality in their work, and a mature dignity that is so beyond the childish nonsense of most other, otherwise talented, artists.

  17. I’ve been a Cohen fan since the ’60s, and have never stopped listening to him. His lyrics still come to mind unprompted and still fascinate. My kids all like him, even my 14-year old daughter.

    I play Cohen over Dylan. From Master Song:

    Then I think you’re playing far too rough
    for a lady who’s been to the moon;
    I’ve lain by this window long enough
    to get used to an empty room.
    And your love is some dust in an old man’s cuff
    who is tapping his foot to a tune,
    and your thighs are a ruin, you want too much,
    let’s say you came back some time too soon.

    Steve Rosenbach: if you want a true suicide song, check out “Gloomy Sunday” — there’s even a movie about it.

  18. An interesting Cohen song, which I believe dates from the 1980s, is “The Captain.” Opening lines:

    The captain called me to his bed
    And fumbled for my hand
    “Take these silver bars,” he said
    “I’m giving you command”

    The song also includes the lines:

    “I know that you have suffered, lad
    But suffer this awhile:
    Whatever makes a soldier sad
    Will make a killer smile”

    I don’t pretend to know exactly what Cohen meant by this song, but I always think of the lines above when leftists express their dislike of those who use force in a rational and legitimate fashion (“soldiers”) while at the same time applauding terrorists who pursue orgiastic violence (“killers”).

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  24. This line, “He was so old, after all–well over thirty! Since MTV and music videos had not been born, all I had to go on was the sound,” made me remember being told that it was the movie “McCabe and Mrs. Miller” which featured Leonard Cohen’s songs, so worked into the story being told that it gave rise to the idea of music videos.

    I don’t know if that was true, but I remember the movie (barely) and it was, in much of, like that.

  25. Sorry about the fast typing job above…seems I skipped over some words… Oh well, you know what I meant.

    I just wanted to post the link to the video that you mentioned with the couples dancing. It was still working for me 5 mins ago…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIdZ-rRnUkg&NR=1

    Can’t say I’m the most sentimental person around, but it almost broke me up.

  26. One amazing man,alot of talent,even with age he’s grasped God so vividly,yet still without knowing His name and all He stills a poise of wisdom many fail to grasp and Bob Dylan is like Leonard Cohen in so many ways,but they differ quite a bit I guess.All songwriters do me I am one,yet Cohen I would like to write more like or have a little bit of Cohen style in my writing.If I would have to spell Leonard in one word it’s Humble.

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