Closing is happening earlier this week as my drawing pad is calling my name and it is a call I will answer. This week's closing song comes from the comments of last week, and is both for Bob and Candace. There are many versions of this song floating around but I chose this one because it is a plea to heaven, and anyone can plead to heaven, so I chose the sound of a lamentation over beauty. Besides, I suspect heaven is more familiar with the sound of our voices in sorrow than in joy.
I don't know where I picked up this piece of esoteric imagery but it has stayed with me since I came across it. It is said that the sounds of our prayers are carried up to the heavens and held lovingly, word by word, in the hands of the Mal'achim Adonai, and only then released, when they reach the court of heaven. May it be so - If it be your will.
Lyric:
If it be your will
That a voice be true From this broken hill I will sing to you From this broken hill All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing From this broken hill All your praises they shall ring
Tonight's song is for my friend, Beachnut, who never really knew any Leonard Cohen before I started to post the video-songs online. The thing about Leonard Cohen is; one never really listens to the music as much pathos Cohen imparts to the imagery of his lyrics. Many of Cohen's best songs have been huge hits for other singers, and quite often, the cover is much more powerful than the original Cohen tune. Whenever I hum along to Bird on a Wire it is Aaron Neville's voice I hear. My choice tonight is the exception, and I have yet to hear anyone master this song better than Cohen.
Lyric
Now so long, Marianne, it's time that we began to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.
Well you know that I love to live with you, but you make me forget so very much. I forget to pray for the angels and then the angels forget to pray for us.
Once again I find that I am racing against the sunset to get everything done which has to be done and still find time to argue with my teenagers...lucky for me (not so much for them) I mastered multi-tasking long ago. So without much further ado, I am closing down the blog with the Sisters of Mercy because, well, I just am.
Don't ask why, only the blogger gods knows, but for some reason Friday's post did post as scheduled. I suppose if I cared enough I could solve the mystery except I don't care.
Posting has been spotty this week as I have been busy using my time pursuing other interests - mainly drawing and reading. Besides, I am tired of going to bed every night only to dreaming of painting, and when I wake, the longing to paint is almost overwhelming... but there is so little time in which to paint. Something had to give, and this week, it was blogging. Next week - who knows? So it's apt that this week's song is Leonard Cohen's Like a Bird on a Wire.
The other night the Last Amazon and I were discussing poetry and music – don’t ask why - I am still not sure how it came up. I recited part of an Earle Birney poem I was forced to memorize in grade 12. Literally decades after the event and these four lines are still stuck firmly engraved in the recesses of my mind. Of course, it probably didn’t hurt that I was publicly chastised in the classroom for suggesting the Birney poem contained ‘homoerotic imagery’. Frankly, it seem rather self-evident to me and when I tried to justify my reasoning, I was tutted and hissed all the way to the principal’s office. What can I say – it was seventies. I can’t remember the name of the poem but it went like this -
There are better ways to catch a god, who is feeling gay and girly, then tickling with a fishing rod, among the short and curly
The Last Amazon agreed there was a strong element of homoerotic, but then again, she shares not just my DNA but my poetry dyslexia. Anyway, as smart and savvy as the Last Amazon is, there are still things she shares in common with most of her peers – this blind belief that her generation just invented not only sex but sensuality, bawdiness and vulgarity. Some would suggest it is the arrogance of youth but I prefer to think of it as the wonder of first discovery.
Anyway, this lead to a whole discussion of the bawdiness in songs and I mentioned the Cohen’s Chelsea Hotel. She didn’t believe me when I recited how it started, so tonight’s song for her. Read ‘em as Cohen sings along and pay up the $10 we bet Kikibird, and take this as your life mantra – never bet against your mother.
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel, you were talking so brave and so sweet, giving me head on the unmade bed, while the limousines wait in the street. Those were the reasons and that was New York, we were running for the money and the flesh. And that was called love for the workers in song probably still is for those of them left.
I turned the moderation on early as I intend to be tied up early for the first long weekend of warmer season here in the north. Friday’s song is simply Hallelujah – in concert. What more is there left to say?
All week I wondered what song I would batter down the hatches of the blog with and as I opened up my newsreader this morning, I still hadn’t a clue, but a story out of Germany sealed the deal for this week’s song. Really, it couldn’t be anything other than the Partisan by Leonard Cohen.
Lyrical highlight:
Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing, through the graves the wind is blowing, freedom soon will come; then we'll come from the shadows.
Once again its time to batter down the hatches and turn comment moderation on. Since I am feeling both somewhat dark and autobiographical; Friday’s song is By the Rivers Dark. Lyrical Highlight:
By the rivers dark I wandered on. I lived my life in Babylon.
And I did forget My holy song: And I had no strength In Babylon.
According to Ha’aretz, a pro-Palestinian UK group is attempting to get Leonard Cohen to cancel his Israeli concert dates because, well, it’s contrary to Buddhism and Israeli soldiers might attend his concert who also drink, go to clubs and play backgammon with each other. Frackingly unbelievable, I couldn’t make up this stuff if I tried. Now I am starting to believe there is really some kind of mind altering substance in the water in Britain.
Personally, I don’t know how far the UK academics will get with this line of thinking…considering Cohen still considers himself a Jew and did not hesitate to come to Israel during the Yom Kippur war…anyway, he’s our man.
Lyrical highlight - Or if you want to strike me down in anger. Here I stand, I’m your man.
Legendary singer Leonard Cohen will hold one concert in Israel on September 24, three days after his 75th birthday. Cohen will perform at the Ramat Fan Stadium as part of his current European tour. Cohen is due to launch his North American tour on April 1 and then continue to Europe at the end of May. News of the concert was recently published on the singer's official website and representatives of the producer who will bring him to the Holy Land confirmed the report to Ynet.
So since Cohen will be spending his post-birthday performing in Yisrael, I thought it was only fitting to choose the song he wrote while entertaining Israeli troops in the Sinai during the Yom Kippur War. Rumors has it, that Cohen and Ariel Sharon (who apparently was a big fan) shared a bottle of cognac together.
Lyrical highlight:
And may the spirit of this song, May it rise up pure and free. May it be a shield for you, A shield against the enemy.
A dark cloud has descended upon me today. I have learned that no one will be home for dinner tonight. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, there is nothing sadder or more deafening than the silence which surrounds the dinning table. This makes me unnaturally reflective of many things so in response to my mood I will shut the virtual doors on the blog with Leonard Cohen’s Who By Fire.
Since the last post was far too depressing a note to close down the blogshop for the weekend, I thought I would take me leave on a higher note. Since I am not much of a poet (see here) and the closest I come to understanding modern poets is Leonard Cohen, I thought I would post one of my favourites among his newer songs…but it does make me wonder if there is ever really an end to love...as I have yet to find an end to loving.
I am not sure why that is, but it is, what it is. I first learned the depth of my deficiency during the poetry components of 4 years of secondary school English. Good thing poetry never counted for more than 15% of one’s overall mark or I might never have got out of high school alive.
My four years of English poetry taught me that no matter what I thought a poem was about I was dead wrong - every single time. Not only was I wrong every single time I thought I had finally encountered a 'eureka' poetry moment, more often than not, I was completely stymied by what the poet was trying to say in 90% of the poems I encountered in the first place. The only exception is Tehillim. Not only do I get it, I actually enjoy it. There is only one other poet which comes close to my experience with Tehillim – Leonard Cohen.
I won’t say I understand what he is trying to say, but his imagery with words always conjures up these vivid pictures in my mind and I tend to relate emotionally to his poems. For example, one of my favourite lines of poetry runs –
I stepped into an avalanche, it covered up my soul, When I am not a hunchback, I sleep behind a hill, you who wish to conquer pain Must learn to serve me well, - Parasites of Heaven
He lost me on the whole ‘hunchback and sleeping beneath a hill', but I know what it feels like to step into an avalanche and feel it cover up one’s soul, and I get the conquering pain bit, well, I think I do. Every where I have gone this week I keep hearing his ‘Hallelujah’ and I grow nostalgic. I found this You Tube video of him singing “Do I Have to Dance All Night” with Laura Branigan on background vocals. Even though recording sound quality is really poor, I relate to it very well and can’t stop singing it under my breath. Apparently, this song has never been released in North America. Shame really.
Lyrics - I’m Forty-One, the moon is full, you make love very well. You touch me like I touch myself, I like you Mademoiselle. You’re so fresh and you’re so new, I do enjoy you, Miss. There’s nothing I would rather do than move around just like this
But do I have to dance all night? But do I have to dance all night? Ooh tell me, Bird of Paradise, do I have to dance all night?
You never really have to tell me what you really think of me - alright. Let’s say I’m doing fine, but do I have to dance all night?
Do I have to dance all night? …
I learned this step a while ago. I had to practice it while everybody slept. I waited half my life for you, you know, I didn’t even think that you’d accept. And here you are before me in the flesh saying “Yes, yes, yes!”
