Dress Rehearsal Rag

[Pete]

The following is a quote from Judy Collins

"I met Leonard Cohen in 1966, when my Canadian friend Mary Martin arranged for us to meet. Leonard had been a published and successful writer and poet for many years, and had recently written his first songs. He came down from Canada one night, and I listened to his songs in my living room.

He sang Suzanne and Dress Rehearsal Rag that night, sitting on the couch, holding the guitar on his knee. I was moved by his singing voice, and by the songs, and by his whole presence. There was something very ethereal and at the same time earthy about his voice. When Leonard sang, I was entranced. I became immediately devoted to him, and we soon were friends"


I notice that Dress Rehearsal Rag was already in existence in 1966 at about the time he recorded 'Songs of'
How come this song didn't get recorded until 'Love and Hate'?

Just intrigued...slightly

Pete

[Ali]

Pete, that was really spooky, I was just listening to Judi Collins when I read your post

[lizzytysh]

Ali ~

One of the things you'll come to know about Pete is his uncanny gift with synchronicities . He's a magnet for them. I'm not the least surprized by this ~ especially with you being as you are .

~ Lizzy

[jerry]

Dress Rehearsal Rag

Four o'clock in the afternoon
And I didn't feel like very much.
I said to myself, "Where are you golden boy,
Where is your famous golden touch?"
I thought you knew where
All of the elephants lie down,
I thought you were the crown prince
Of all the wheels in Ivory Town.
Just take a look at your body now,
There's nothing much to save
And a bitter voice in the mirror cries,
"Hey, Prince, you need a shave."
Now if you can manage to get
Your trembling fingers to behave,
Why don't you try unwrapping
A stainless steel razor blade?
That's right, it's come to this,
Yes it's come to this,
And wasn't it a long way down,
Wasn't it a strange way down?
There's no hot water
And the cold is running thin.
Well, what do you expect from
The kind of places you've been living in?
Don't drink from that cup,
It's all caked and cracked along the rim.
That's not the electric light, my friend,
That is your vision growing dim.
Cover up your face with soap, there,
Now you're Santa Claus.
And you've got a gift for anyone
Who will give you his applause.
I thought you were a racing man,
Ah, but you couldn't take the pace.
That's a funeral in the mirror
And it's stopping at your face.
That's right, it's come to this,
Yes it's come to this,
And wasn't it a long way down,
Ah wasn't it a strange way down?

Once there was a path
And a girl with chestnut hair,
And you passed the summers
Picking all of the berries that grew there;
There were times she was a woman,
Oh, there were times she was just a child,
And you held her in the shadows
Where the raspberries grow wild.
And you climbed the twilight mountains
And you sang about the view,
And everywhere that you wandered
Love seemed to go along with you.
That's a hard one to remember,
Yes it makes you clench your fist.
And then the veins stand out like highways,
All along your wrist.
And yes it's come to this,
It's come to this,
And wasn't it a long way down,
Wasn't it a strange way down?

You can still find a job,
Go out and talk to a friend.
On the back of every magazine
There are those coupons you can send.
Why don't you join the Rosicrucians,
They can give you back your hope,
You can find your love with diagrams
On a plain brown envelope.
But you've used up all your coupons
Except the one that seems
To be written on your wrist
Along with several thousand dreams.
Now Santa Claus comes forward,
That's a razor in his mit;
And he puts on his dark glasses
And he shows you where to hit;
And then the cameras pan,
The stand in stunt man,
Dress rehearsal rag,
It's just the dress rehearsal rag,
You know this dress rehearsal rag,
It's just a dress rehearsal rag.

[lizzytysh]

A lot in the way of self-exploration seems to happen for Leonard at four, doesn't it ?

[Tchocolatl]

Jerry, it is such a pleasure each time one or the other piece of LC's work is bring here in the middle of a thread or another. Thanks! I have enjoyed so much.

And, yes, yes, to come back to the main purpose of the thread :

I notice that Dress Rehearsal Rag was already in existence in 1966 at about the time he recorded 'Songs of'
How come this song didn't get recorded until 'Love and Hate'?

[constantsorrow]

I notice that Dress Rehearsal Rag was already in existence in 1966 at about the time he recorded 'Songs of'
How come this song didn't get recorded until 'Love and Hate'?

Just intrigued...slightly

Pete

Maybe it was recorded before "SOLAH", who knows. According with U.S Copyright Office, the song was copyrighted April 3 and July 19 1967, before the recording session of "Songs Of".

[tomsakic]

I believe that Leonard has written many songs up to 1967, and that's why he had three albums in only 4 years (what he later didn't repeat) - he had the songs written or even some of them recorded.

Most of the songs were written earlier, not only Dress Rehearsal Rag. Some are dated even in 1950s, but recorded in 1976 i.e. (Store Room, Everybody's Child). Tonight Will Be Fine was written in early 50s. If you check Demos and Acetate Vinyl Demo http://www.leonardcohenlive.com/storeroom.htm at constantsorrow's site, you'll see some songs were recorded already in 1966, not only Dress Rehearsal Rag (Story of Isaac, Nancy, Last Year's Man, Loves Calls You By Your Name). Take This Longing appeared only in 1974! (Itwas recorded as Bells by Buffy St Marie in 1971). That album, New Skin For The Old Ceremony, seems to be the first one to have the actually "new" material, written between 1970 and 1974.

[lizzytysh]

It's that vast storehouse we call "Leonard's Notebooks" ~ Who knows all the treasures?

[Pete]

Tom and Constantsorrow
Many thanks for your replies...... very informative

Another intriguing dimension to this is that he chose to sing Dress Rehearsal Rag to Judy Collins yet he never sang this song when on tour.
I wonder why


Lizzy.
Precisely.. who knows what his 'notebook' held. How long did it take for some songs to evolve from a scribble to a finished article


Pete

[lizzytysh]

< * Carnac holds sealed envelope to forehead * >


"Carnac says:
Many ~ many ~ years."

~ Lizzy

[tomsakic]

He sung it two times in 1968, at BBC Sessions and at BBC's John Peel Sessions. Better than on the record, I'd say.

Why? You know Leonard... I guess he really felt that about "suicide song". He did say as introduction to BBC Sessions' performance:

You know there's a song in, I think it was in Czechoslovakia, called "Gloomy Sunday" that was forbidden to play because every time it would play people would leap out of windows and off of roofs. It was a tragic song. And I read in the Athens news the other day that the composer of it, who only really wrote that one song, he died recently, jumped out of a window himself. I have one of those songs that I have banned for myself. I sing it only on extremely joyous occasions when I know that the landscape can support the despair that I am about to project into it. It's called the "Dress Rehearsal Rag."

Diamonds in the Lines

Leonard Cohen
Yeah. Well there are some songs which I never --- I never sing in public. I am not trying to be super-sensitive or coy about it, just that particular song I very rarely sing, to myself, to friends or any time. I wrote it, I taught it to Judy Collins and she recorded it and I have never, I never sung it in public and maybe I have sung it three or four times to myself in that last time. It comes out of... It is an authentic song I think. It comes out of my own experience but I am not interested in, I can’t somehow that I, I haven’t been able to release that song from its private area. I recorded it, I was surprised, I surprised myself that I recorded it. I am not happy with the recording. I think it has a number of flaws in it as a recording but I certainly, I don’t think I could ever do that under the spotlight.

Kathleen Kendel
You refer to yourself as a closet suicide.

Leonard Cohen
Well I, I, I --- One speculates about these things in private. I no longer do. And that is a song about suicide and I certainly don’t want to present myself as a potential suicide for any reason whatsoever. So it has dropped out of my singing landscape. I just don’t think about a song like that.

http://www.leonardcohencroatia.com/wbai1974.php

[Pete]

Tom,
you're a star

I think I'm right in saying that his first 'official' tour was in 1970. His renditions of Dress Rehearsal Rag were at 'one off' appearances prior to his first tour. He obviously didnt want to take the song with him .. for the reasons you have posted.

thanks again for taking the time to ease my intrigue.


Pete

[Tchocolatl]

Ye-aw. I have the same reserve about this subject. Not that I would like it to be a taboo, but I think it is necessary to be cautious when handling it, like for a gun.

Now, for me, everything LC has written in or about pain (even on this delicate - but so realistic - matter) is pointing out of it while staying alive. It indicates me the safe exit of unavoidadle sufferings, that, it seems, everybody has to endure at/for some times. So it does not depress me or more, it is soothing me.

I think that, this, in his art work - the force of life being more powerful than pain at the end - may be very uncounscious but not less absolutely true. Anyway : for me.

[Kevin W.M.LastYearsMan]

To me that album is a master work. Thank you for posting his comments about Dress Rehersal Rag. I had a dark period when I listened to that song more than any other. I look at it as Leonard writing his way out of the despair, just as I did back in the day.

Cover up your face with soap
now you're Santa Claus
and you've got a gift for anyone
who will give you his applause.

To me that is just brilliant. His entire perspective of contemplating suicide, sink or swim time, and then the cameras pan, the stand-in STUNT MAN, Dress Rehersal Rag. I had never heard anything about suicide in anything like that perspective before or since that song. That all of the self-loathing in that song is ultimately passed off to the stand-in stunt man. I don't know, it may be morbid but I was fixated with the idea of the dress rehersal for the actual suicide, and then changing his mind. Ever line in that song is great.
Kevin