Inspiration behind Who By Fire

[verandi]

Who by Fire is one of my all time fave songs.
Does anyone know the story behind it ?

Thanks !

[Tchocolatl]

The inspiration came from a Jewish prayor :

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pilgraeme/lyric ... who_by.htm

"According to the tradition, the Day of Atonement (or Yom Kippur), is the time when the final verdict is made for each human life for the coming year. Everyone confesses his sins. In the synagogue, the Yom Kippur service begins in the evening with special prayers called Kol Nidre ("all my vows"), asking for the annulment of all vows.This prayer is chanted by the cantor in a somber and deeply moving melody."


Source : http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pilgraeme/

[muddy]

I don't have any idea.
there are a lot of experts here that are going to help you I think.

Tristesa no teim fin, felicidade sim.... (or something) - I love Jobim -

all best.

[keith 0]

Or from the film "The Song of Leonard Cohen":
That song derives very directly from a Hebrew prayer that is sung on the Day of Atonement, or the evening of the Day of the Atonement:(? Hebrew) Who by fire, who by sword, who by water? According to the tradition, the Book of Life is opened and in it is inscribed all those who will live and all those who will die for the following year. And in that prayer is catalogued all the various ways in which you can quit this veil of tears. The melody is if not actually stolen, is certainly derived from the melody that I heard in the synagogue as a boy.But of course, the conclusion of the song, as I write it, is somewhat different: "Who shall I say is calling?" Well, that is what makes the song into a prayer for me in my terms, which is who is it or what is it that determine who will live and who will die ? What is the source of this great furnace of creation ? Who lights it ? Who extinguishes it ?


The link on the Leonard Cohen files to Marc Gaffie's "Leonard Cohen In His Live Words" site is a great resource for such information and very interesting to visit. Many of the spoken introductions from Leonard's live performances are there listed by song. Great stuff.

Keith

[Steven]

Much of the words are derived from a Yom Kippur prayer. Keith, I've
never heard Leonard's musical rendition recited in the synagogue.
Could it be that the cantor of your boyhood synagogue was a
Leonard Cohen fan? (Or maybe a bit of musical revisionism
transforming memory?)

[tomsakic]

But when my friend visited Mormon's church here in Croatia, they singed Who By Fire while one member played the guitar. As my friend is big LC fan (early albums), he didn't have nothing againts it:-)

[tomsakic]

Also, we had it already here (lightning's post):

viewtopic.php?p=27049#27049

[Kevin W.M.LastYearsMan]

Thanks for pointing that out, Keith. I hadn't looked at the links but that sounds like something that I'll definitely check out.
Kevin

[Steven]

Keith,

Mea culpa for my not noticing that it was Leonard's words that
you were quoting and not a personal reminiscence of yours.

I never heard the song as melodically similar to the traditional
prayer melody (could there be more than one melody or maybe
the melody morphed in Leonard's mind over the years into
a brand new creation of his own, or was Leonard erring on the
side of extreme caution in avoiding the "sin" of claiming
what he thought could have been the original prayer composer's work --
caution of which would be consistent with other Yom Kippur
prayers which delineates a multitude of possible wrongs for
which the supplicant seeks forgiveness?).

Or from the film "The Song of Leonard Cohen":
That song derives very directly from a Hebrew prayer that is sung on the Day of Atonement, or the evening of the Day of the Atonement:(? Hebrew) Who by fire, who by sword, who by water? According to the tradition, the Book of Life is opened and in it is inscribed all those who will live and all those who will die for the following year. And in that prayer is catalogued all the various ways in which you can quit this veil of tears. The melody is if not actually stolen, is certainly derived from the melody that I heard in the synagogue as a boy.But of course, the conclusion of the song, as I write it, is somewhat different: "Who shall I say is calling?" Well, that is what makes the song into a prayer for me in my terms, which is who is it or what is it that determine who will live and who will die ? What is the source of this great furnace of creation ? Who lights it ? Who extinguishes it ?


The link on the Leonard Cohen files to Marc Gaffie's "Leonard Cohen In His Live Words" site is a great resource for such information and very interesting to visit. Many of the spoken introductions from Leonard's live performances are there listed by song. Great stuff.

Keith

[verandi]

Thanks to all the replies and links, they were all very enlightening.
I know the song for many years and it's been a fave of mine foerever and I wondered what the song was about.

Thanks again !

[Dead Man]

has anyone heard Coil's cover of "who by fire" ? it's quite amazing

[tomsakic]

I have. Nice work indeed, although not among my favourite covers. House of Love also did nice job. It's great song. Leonard's performance in RAH in 1988 still is the high peak (as seen in BBC's docu Songs From the Life of Leonard Cohen).

And - of course - best "cover" is Leonard's performance at Sunday Night Live, with Was (Not Was) on unbelievable gospel-like back vocals and Sonny Rollins on saxophone (instead of Bilezikjian's oud) - - - > > > Who By Fire - 1989, at ~greg's Rare Live Songs MP3 site.

[Nightstalker]

Here is some additional information about the inspiration for "Who.." I was moved to post this after I listened to the live recording on the link above with the saxophone accompanist. The sounds of that saxophone call to mind the blowing of the Shofar, Ram's horn,

http://www.holidays.net/highholydays/shofar.htm

at the end of the Yom Kippur services. The end of that particular song is particularly like the longest and loudest blowing (done on another day). That entire recording of this song is very eastern European Jewish in feeling. I like it but wish it were a cleaner recording. (Thank you, Tom, for this great website link for all those wonderful live songs. I am enjoying them now.)

This may become confusing. The prayer that inspired the song is not specifically the Kol Nidre which is a specific prayer sung the night of the beginning of Yom Kippur, but is a prayer within the Amidah, Great Prayer, which is chanted during the morning of the day of Yom Kippur. (This becomes less confusing when we remember that Jewish days begin at sundown and continue until sundown the next day. When we speak of Yom Kippur services we all mean the ones beginning after sundown of one day and then continuing the next day until sundown. BTW, we fast, no food or drink of any kind the entire period. And there are other prohibitions also.) Someone already posted the 'refrain' at the end of Unetaneh Tokef, a prayer within the Great Prayer which inspired most of the song and I won't repost that. The whole Amidah is just too long to post but is available on line.

Someone else was correct in that the inspiration for the lines below are not part of the refrain of the prayer that is the source of mosty of the inspiration:

"Cohen implies blame as in " who for his greed and who for his hunger" while the ritual prayer does no such thing. " (from another topic on this subject)

But these thoughts are inspired by parts of the same prayer. I will copy a few pertinent lines here:

When we really begin a new year it is decided,
And when we actually repent it is determined:

Who shall be truely alive,
And who shall merely exist;

Who shall be tormented by the fire of ambition,
And whose hopes shall be quenched by the waters of failure;

Who shall be pierced by the sharp sword of envy,
And who shall be torn by the wild beast of resentment;

Who shall hunger for companionship,
And who shall thirst for approval;

And that is enough. Strange thing that I now understand what 'hunger' and 'greed' Leonard meant. And it fits him so and sheds new light upon the entire song and him. I will redouble my efforts towards understanding his lyrics............