In his Hallelujah song I thought Lennie was singing "The Battle king composing Hallelujah". It was only lately that I realize he was singing "The baffled king....". How silly of me.
You know, "Battle king" seemed so right, because King David indulged in so many wars while on the other hand "baffled king" seemed to me a bit out of contest because since when King David was ever baffled? To me he seems to know exactly what he's doing. Well maybe with women he may have been "baffled" ever since he watched Bat Sheva bathing on the roof. Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew him.
Me too and it made sense. I thought for a very long time it was battle king.
Dublin 14th June, Manchester 20th June, O2 17th July, Matlock Bandstand Aug 28, O2 14th November, Royal Albert Hall 17th and 18th November 2008, MBW 11th July 2009, Liverpool Echo 14th July 2009
Dublin 14th June, Manchester 20th June, O2 17th July, Matlock Bandstand Aug 28, O2 14th November, Royal Albert Hall 17th and 18th November 2008, MBW 11th July 2009, Liverpool Echo 14th July 2009
seadove wrote:since when King David was ever baffled? To me he seems to know exactly what he's doing.
He was baffled upon seeing Bathsheba and when composing Hallelujah!
No I don't think so. Certainly he was fascinated by her beauty but we're talking about a king who never even once lost a battle. This guy was solid steel back then.
seadove wrote:No I don't think so. Certainly he was fascinated by her beauty but we're talking about a king who never even once lost a battle. This guy was solid steel back then.
To the contrary, one of the things that I like best about David is that, unlike other mythical kings, he is portrayed in his own official history as flesh and blood with his share of imperfections.
Last edited by brightnow on Wed Dec 09, 2009 6:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Columbia May 11, 2009; Boston May 29, 2009; Durham November 3, 2009; Las Vegas December 10 & 11, 2010; Austin November 1, 2012; Boston December 15, 2012; Brooklyn December 20, 2012
"Baffled" sounds like Leonard Cohen when he's writing.
Other stanzas (especially those which appeared later)
don't follow this pattern, but here the effortless Hallelujah
is the "broken" one, and the "holy" Hallelujah is a great
strain.
David was hardly "baffled" over Bathsheba. On the contrary, he was
successful, in a very ugly style of passion. Or am I wrong?
Possibly relevant here are the written answers
to written questions from the Jewish Telegraph (?), cited in
(amongst others) Dorman and Rawlins' Prophet of the Heart. I don't have
my own copy, but I can offer a rough paraphrase of the two of the
questions from memory. The answers together compose 2 Samuel 11:2.
Q: Has your Jewish background influenced your work?
A: From the roof he saw a woman washing herself.
Q: Has your Jewish background helped your work?
A: And the woman was very beautiful to look upon.
I don't know exactly what Cohen is getting at here (he
doesn't mind spreading a little bafflement himself),
but it suggests that the episode somehow
represents to him something about Jewish identity.
