Songs of Love and Hate
Songs of Love and Hate
I have just heard this album for the first time, and you all know I like LC's music and everything about him much better in his later years. I seem to get the response, "how can you even say that"!!! when I do say that. So can you enlighten me as to what is it about the earlier LC that appeals to you? My response to "Songs of Love and Hate" was similar to Partisans on "Ten New Songs. Off course I am also guilty of doing what I didn't think he did and that was give it more time.
Linda
Linda...this is one of the harder questions I have had to answer...why I like something ?? However, I have attempted to give two partial answers.
1. I actually started listening to his earlier stuff much before his later stuff. And I liked Best of LC, Songs of LC, Songs From a Room and also Songs of L & H. I don't really recall how much attention I paid to lyrics back then (early 90s ??) but I just liked the sombre monotone. I had earlier heard I'm Your Man right after Best of LC and disliked it intensely (except Take this Waltz). I even tried to return The Future in 1994/95 back to the store(I was a poor grad student then but they wouldnt take it back) becoz' I disliked everything about it, most of all the raspy voice. But gradually I started appreciating the raspy voiced LC after hearing Cohen Live - and now I like all his albums. This doesnt really answer your question but tells you that it is the later Cohen that I had to get used to.
2. I had read in an interview - I think it was Dylan who was quoting Cohen - that a serious songwriter/poet writes only one song his/her whole life through. That made an impression on me....you cannot really separate or isolate the early stuff from the later stuff even if in musical and lyrical style they appear to be different. It is a continuum.
Ok, that's the best I can do within reasonable constraints of time and space.
1. I actually started listening to his earlier stuff much before his later stuff. And I liked Best of LC, Songs of LC, Songs From a Room and also Songs of L & H. I don't really recall how much attention I paid to lyrics back then (early 90s ??) but I just liked the sombre monotone. I had earlier heard I'm Your Man right after Best of LC and disliked it intensely (except Take this Waltz). I even tried to return The Future in 1994/95 back to the store(I was a poor grad student then but they wouldnt take it back) becoz' I disliked everything about it, most of all the raspy voice. But gradually I started appreciating the raspy voiced LC after hearing Cohen Live - and now I like all his albums. This doesnt really answer your question but tells you that it is the later Cohen that I had to get used to.
2. I had read in an interview - I think it was Dylan who was quoting Cohen - that a serious songwriter/poet writes only one song his/her whole life through. That made an impression on me....you cannot really separate or isolate the early stuff from the later stuff even if in musical and lyrical style they appear to be different. It is a continuum.
Ok, that's the best I can do within reasonable constraints of time and space.
That's it, Kush. "Sombre" vs. "depressing/sad." Now, sombre I can live with and not dispute.
I really like the quote....and it sounds like something Leonard would say.
Glad you came around to the later stuff. Jazz Police was the only one that made me do a double-take. Then, I got into the humour and just went with it.
~Lizzytysh
I really like the quote....and it sounds like something Leonard would say.
Glad you came around to the later stuff. Jazz Police was the only one that made me do a double-take. Then, I got into the humour and just went with it.
~Lizzytysh
Thanks for the reply Kush, didn't mean to put you on the spot. I understand where you are coming from on the sacrilege comment, however I can't agree, unless I don't understand it, that a serious singer/songwriter only writes one song his entire life through, lifes experiences change us. That is one to think about, I guess
Linda
Well, you'll have to take issue with LC about that quote (and apparently Dylan too). Perhaps most people change in outlook due to experiences but not very much fundamentally at the core.
To me that is also an admission of the fact that any one person can only see things from a limited set of perspectives, LC included.
To me that is also an admission of the fact that any one person can only see things from a limited set of perspectives, LC included.
Lizzytysh....that's good ....'many different verses'.
I'm not sure he meant it as limiting perspectives but I firmly interpret it like that. LC is a brilliant and articulate wordsmith, a deep thinker, a fine musician but his perspective (or set of perspectives) is limited just like the rest of us.
If we take his words seriously he spent 10 years in Mt. Baldy to figure out he was not a good monk, he took 10 years for that ?? It would have taken me 2 days !! (And of course, that would have limited my perspective of Mt. Baldy).
I'm not sure he meant it as limiting perspectives but I firmly interpret it like that. LC is a brilliant and articulate wordsmith, a deep thinker, a fine musician but his perspective (or set of perspectives) is limited just like the rest of us.
If we take his words seriously he spent 10 years in Mt. Baldy to figure out he was not a good monk, he took 10 years for that ?? It would have taken me 2 days !! (And of course, that would have limited my perspective of Mt. Baldy).
We live our life as if it's real. A Thousand Kisses Deep.
I don't know did he go on Mt Baldy to become a monk? In an interview he gave in August of last year in Spain, he is quoted in this article as saying "when I finished the last concerts, I turned 60 years old, and my great friend and teacher Joshu Sasaki Roshi had turned 90, I thought it was a good moment to intensify our relationship and continue my studies with him. I like the life in that community. I believe that when I was on tour I drank too much. I needed a new structure, so there they gave me form, a cause, and an opportunity for me to work very closely with my old teacher.
But to each their own. It is my opinion that your journey through life changes you right down to the core. When you get older life takes on a whole new perspective from when you were young. This is the message I get from LC also. Might not be the right message but it is the one I am getting.
I don't know did he go on Mt Baldy to become a monk? In an interview he gave in August of last year in Spain, he is quoted in this article as saying "when I finished the last concerts, I turned 60 years old, and my great friend and teacher Joshu Sasaki Roshi had turned 90, I thought it was a good moment to intensify our relationship and continue my studies with him. I like the life in that community. I believe that when I was on tour I drank too much. I needed a new structure, so there they gave me form, a cause, and an opportunity for me to work very closely with my old teacher.
But to each their own. It is my opinion that your journey through life changes you right down to the core. When you get older life takes on a whole new perspective from when you were young. This is the message I get from LC also. Might not be the right message but it is the one I am getting.
Linda