This is an old thread that I hadn't read any of until today, and I only read the beginning and the end; forgive me if I repeat old ideas (pun intended).Mirek wrote:Although there was already some discussion on that verse, but I guess it'd be better to have a separate thread about these words.
He will speak these words of wisdom
Like a sage, a man of vision
Though he knows he’s really nothing
But the brief elaboration of a tube
So, as Jarkko said - it is >tube<, not >tune<. In my opinion it's even better, 'cos elaboration of a tune wouldn't be hard to interpret.
What kind of tube did LC have in mind?
Cathode ray tube being a source of electrons? A scientific metaphor of a poet being a source of words? Someone has already mentioned that.
Elaboration of epithelial tube - biological metaphore of a developing living organism?
Other kind of >tube<? If so - what kind?
I am really interested in your opinions. Remember - I am not a native speaker of English, so my ideas might be absolutely false.
One of the beautiful things about Going Home is the unusual structure and rhyming pattern. I think this is more clearly shown in the second verse as the rhyming words rhyme quite precisely:
He wants to write a love song
An anthem of forgiving
A manual for living with defeat
A cry above the suffering
A sacrifice recovering
But that isn’t what I need him to complete
I want him to be certain
That he doesn’t have a burden
That he doesn’t need a vision
That he only has permission
To do my instant bidding
Which is to say what I have told him
To repeat
One of my long-held contentions is that Mr. Cohen is not just a great writer, he is a great songwriter. He writes songs in a way where the music, and melody, and words all flow together very seemlessly. His remarkable skill and precision is shown in this second verse, as shown there are three sections of each verse, the first two sections are fairly identical as to length and prosody but the third goes completely off the rails and is twice as long but comes back around and matches up with the first two verses quite nicely.
He is truly the master of song.
Ok, so what's the point? The point is that, in my opinion, one can't just take the "elaboration of a tube" line out of the context of the writing of the song itself. Mr. Cohen is of course a very talented writer in general, but here he is writing a song; the song has it's own needs. So we move backwards to the first verse, remembering that there is no guarantee that the first verse was actually composed first and the second verse composed second. After all, it's certainly possible that Mr. Cohen started with the refrain. However, the refrain is not the point today, here is the first verse:
I love to speak with Leonard
He’s a sportsman and a shepherd
He’s a lazy bastard
Living in a suit
But he does say what I tell him
Even though it isn’t welcome
He just doesn't have the freedom
To refuse
He will speak these words of wisdom
Like a sage, a man of vision
Though he knows he’s really nothing
But the brief elaboration of a tube
I have once again bolded the "rhyming" words, here I put the word "rhyming" in quotes because these words don't rhyme so well. One of the beautiful things about songwriting is that one can get close enough and call it good if it works, see my "rhyme" of John and fraud in my current signature.
So my opinion is that Mr. Cohen absolutely meant to use the word "tube", that he's referencing the context of the supreme being communicating to the world through Leonard, whether Leonard likes it or not. My opinion is that when Mr. Cohen was writing this song he was setting it up with the pattern it has and knew it was a really good idea, but needed something that would communicate the way he wanted it to. So he had the picture of him being the conduit by which these thoughts needed to be communicated to the world, which would be like a tube going from above to us, like a downspout or a rolled up piece of newspaper that I speak into your ear with. The "brief elaboration" relates to the relatively short time we are all here in this world.
Love,
Private John K.