Songs of Love and Hate

General discussion about Leonard Cohen's songs and albums
Linda
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Songs of Love and Hate

Post by Linda »

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. :D
Linda
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Post by Guest »

as i have mentioned on the 'tns' board, this album and 'death of a ladies man' are the only two l.c. albums i still cannot listen to even though i am a diehard leonard fan!!! . (and have been for thirty years) . i know i need to persevere and will buy 'songs of love and hate' in the near future... :oops:
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Post by Guest »

the above message is from me. philo :D
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Kush
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Post by Kush »

SACRILEGE !
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Post by Guest »

Kush
You are going to have to explain a little further on that one for me.
Linda
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Post by Linda »

Forgot to login again
Linda
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Kush
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Post by Kush »

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.
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lizzytysh
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Post by lizzytysh »

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
Linda
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Post by Linda »

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
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Kush
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Post by Kush »

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.
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lizzytysh
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Post by lizzytysh »

I saw it as more of life being a continuum, which it is.....with many [different] verses. I saw it as not a literal constricting of one's perspectives and all, just more to show that this is my life.
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Kush
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Post by Kush »

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).
Linda
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Post by Linda »

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.
Linda
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Kush
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Post by Kush »

Well, he clearly said that was the reason he left MB. I don't if he seriously meant it or not.
jurica
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Post by jurica »

not all track on this one are among leonard's greatest, but what else can be said about: Joan of Arc or Last Year's Man... Earlier is plotted so well it scares me, and the other one is so rich i cannot comment on it in few senetnces...
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