Never Any Good and The Great Event

General discussion about Leonard Cohen's songs and albums
YankovicGretzky
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Never Any Good and The Great Event

Post by YankovicGretzky »

What was the whole purpose behind including these two new songs on the More Best of... CD? Let me just say that I thought those songs were awful! The simulated computer voice of the entire Great Event--what the hell was that all about? What a way to end a CD and it was only a little over a minute.
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jarkko
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Post by jarkko »

The record company wanted some bonus tracks. Leonard was at that time living on Mt Baldy and was very interested in computer-created voices. "The Great Event" was a little study he had made, and so it found its way to the album. "Never Any Good" had also been in the can for some time.
jurica
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Re: Never Any Good and The Great Event

Post by jurica »

YankovicGretzky wrote:Let me just say that I thought those songs were awful!
I'll second that!
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Post by YankovicGretzky »

Wait, I'm not finished yet! Why did Leonard choose to include a live version of Suzanne on this CD? The studio version of Suzanne was on the Best of Leonard Cohen CD. Plus, I would have preferred to hear the studio version of Hallelujah. Waiting For the Miracle should have been on this CD as well. Leonard should have just stuck with his 80s and 90s hits for this CD. Why wasn't First We Take Manhatten on here?

This is how I would have mapped out More Best of...

Hallelujah
Dance Me To the End of Love
I'm Your Man
Take This Waltz
Tower of Song
Everybody Knows
First We Take Manhatten
Democracy
The Future
Closing Time
Waiting For The Miracle
Anthem
Tchocolatl
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Post by Tchocolatl »

Interesting order for the songs YG. :D

For the rest I must say I like very much the pieces you discarded.

I love that mature version of Suzanne.

I found the experimental piece very interesting. The Great Event ("which will end the horror which will end the sorrow").

"I'll play the Moonlight Sonata backwards"
I guess he meant only the Adagio sostunuto (part I) of the sonata which produces such a sad atmosphere. Sooooo sad. (I love this sonata when I feel really - I mean really really sad, I listen to it, I feel on the same wavelengh - yes really sad, then, certainly not the Allegreto (Part II) and Presto agitato[/i] (part III) of the Sonata.

Very fashionable idea at the time to play a piece backward and to unleash an evil power out of this action. He meant the contrary, here :

"Next Tuesday, when the sun goes down, I will play the Moolight Sonata backwards. This will reverse the effects of the wold's mad plundge into suffering, for the last 200 million years."

I do not know if the voice is only synthetic sounds, but if it is the work is well done, because some very human inflexions have been produced. The robot sound is not appealing though, but add to the mad-scientist-like atmosphere.

For Never any good, the picture of moments of a couple life is so accurate and funny, I find it is a wonderful caricature!! And I loooOOove the Guitar Solo by Dean Parks, I always put the music louder at this part (and sometimes I have it play twice). :D
***
"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."

Leonard Cohen
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tomsakic
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Post by tomsakic »

Never Any Good shows in which way Leonard was going after and with The Future - more mainstream rock I guess - and before meeting Sharon Robinson. (Leonard's 1996 version of A Thousand Kisses Deep is very similar in style to 1994' Never Any Good) So, those two songs together are in some way anticipation of Dear Heather: Go No More A-Roving follows the Never Any Good/Closing Time "more mainstream" direction, and I can hear Never Any Good on the place of Byron's song very easily, while The Great Event announces the experimental nature of Dear Heather sessions, and it's very reminding on the title song Dear Heather in its robotic-longing, and also of Morning Glory and other experimental tracks.

About Best Of and More Best Of, there are indeed very dubious choices on some places. There's no need to talk about the 2nd one because at that time LC did choose to represenz only his "new" style which gave him great security and I would dare to say even new life after (commercially of course) he was forced to think that Recent Songs and Various Positions are bad records. Now, years later, many people think VP is his best record ever, and he himself states Recent Songs as his best album. Anyway, there's no need to talk about it because The Essential fixed all misfits, the first CD covered whole Best Of, adding some missing songs (The Stranger Song etc) and erasing the wrong ones (Lady Midnight on Best Of?), and we have one Recent song, excellent choice from VP, and then the compilation covered in same manner the late years, taking complete More Best Of and adding the songs which were omitted (Waiting For The Miracle etc), plus adding 4 best songs from TNS.
I would of course say that Recent Songs needed to be presented more, and of course DOALM. We will need the new compilation one day, more objective - I hope LC would accept one day the authorization of compilation choosen by someone else than himself. And with the liner notes.
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Post by smccallon »

i like both those songs!
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Bobbie
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Post by Bobbie »

I prefer the MOJO compilation (Sony UK) over Essential - complete with 11 pages of liner notes - (released last year, but without Leonard's authorization or knowledge, or so I heard at the time, but don't quote me - Jarrko would probably know). Essential, in my opinion has far too many tracks from TNS.

The tracks from "An Introduction To Leonard Cohen", compiled by MOJO, are as follows:

Disc 1

1) Suzanne
2) Sisters Of Mercy
3) One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong
4) The Old Revolution
5) Seems So Long Ago, Nancy
6) Bird On The Wire
7) Joan Of Arc
8) Famous Blue Raincoat
9) Diamonds In The Mine
10) Chelsea Hotel # 2
11) I Tried To Leave You
12) Who By Fire
13) Iodine

Disc 2

1) The Smokey Life
2) Dance Me To The End OF Love
3) Hallelujah
4) If It Be Your Will
5) I'm Your Man
6) Take This Waltz
7) Tower Of Song
8) Light As The Breeze
9) The Gypsy's Wife (live)
10) That Don't Make It Junk

Just my .02...
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Bobbie
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Post by Bobbie »

Why does the number 8 turn up as a smiley face, as shown in my last post?
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linda_lakeside
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Post by linda_lakeside »

#8 would be a smilie face on my list as well. Hearing Leonard utter those words...in that voice....Oh, yes....smilie face.
~ The smell of perfume in the air, bits of beauty everywhere ~ Leonard Cohen.
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Bobbie
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Post by Bobbie »

I definitely understand the reason to smile with those songs... just that I didn't deliberately add the smiley faces - seems like they translated that way all on their own. (Looks I'll have to have a chat with Bill Gates.) I wonder if he would notice my email in the 4 million spam messages he gets each day. haha. Oh well... they turned up in good places nonetheless.. happy accident!
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tom.d.stiller
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Post by tom.d.stiller »

Bobbie wrote:Why does the number 8 turn up as a smiley face, as shown in my last post?
Hi Bobbie,

An 8 immediately followed by a right parenthesis is BBCode for this particular smile. You can use it as a quicker way of entering things, but sometimes the results are - well a bit undesired. Try numbering with dotted numbers or with number <SPACE> RightParenthesis...

Though in this case it could well have been a "freudian error" of the BBCode parser. :) (colon + RightParenthesis)

Cheers
Tom
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Bobbie
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Post by Bobbie »

Thanks Tom... I appreciate the info and the tips, which I will employ posthaste... hehe. I try not to overuse those little buggers, so when they showed up uninvited, I wasn't happy... sort of like when a telemarketer calls at dinner time.. or any time. How good it is to be informed! Oh alright, maybe this is an appropriate time to pull one out of the files... how about this one... :shock:

Bobbie
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tom.d.stiller
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Post by tom.d.stiller »

Bobbie in a state of :shock: (colon-shock-colon) :?: (colon-?-colon)

:oops: (colon-oops-colon) Is it me to blame? :( (colon-LeftParenthesis)

:wink:
Tom
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Bobbie
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Post by Bobbie »

You've started my head spinning, Tom. Hmmm... speaking of spinning heads... where are the really good emoticons when you need them?... an Exorcist one would be just the thing here!

Bobbie
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