Worst ever song

altinkum · Post by **altinkum** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 7:31 pm

I'm not keen at all on Alexandra leaving, but the one that gives me grazes on my knees as I fly to hit the off button is The Tennesee waltz don't know if this one strictly counts seeing as he didn't write it (thank God) I'm also in the pro Humbled in love camp, Iv'e always liked that song. Never any good I didn't know existed until I bought More best of I quite like it, I confess until Jarkko said that Leonard used a voice synthesiser on The great event I thought Veronica was a real person

a sort of female Stephen hawkins. Oh well you live and learn.

Wendy

peter danielsen · Post by **peter danielsen** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 11:21 am

I think "Don't cry for me Argentina" and "Dancing Queen" are the worst Leonard Cohen songs....oh and "Words, dont come easy"

Peter

Geoffrey · Post by **Geoffrey** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 1:22 pm

My least favourite LC song is called 'Leaving Greensleeves', closely followed by 'The Future' - not because of their musical quality, but because of what they represent. It is generally believed that 'Greensleeves' was composed by Henry VIII - for his future wife, Anne Boleyn. After marriage he ordered that her head be cut off with a sword. He ordered that Catherine Howard, a subsequent wife, have her head chopped off with an axe. I could never fathom Leonard's consistency in bemoaning the death of Joan of Arc while simultaneously honouring an egoistic and womanising megalomaniac who coldy executed two wives on a whim. The song should be forgotten, not promoted. Charles Manson is also given space in the lyrics of one of LC's songs, and this is not right. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but it seems immoral to glorify killers by immortalising their names in song. Now, let's see one of you justify that lot.

tomsakic · Post by **tomsakic** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 3:50 pm

It's nice to have you back, Geoffrey:-)

It seems you're right about Greensleeves, but I disagree with Charlie Manson - it is irony, isn't it? "All the lousy little poets coming around, trying to sound like Charlie Manson" - he actually says that's where we are, how low the civiliastion has come. Lousy poets trying to sound like serial killer and lunatic, and if you need a name to be the epitome of state of our culture, which are descripted in The Future, it's Manson. It's quite opposite of glorifying, it's criticism sunken in dark mood (there's no way out, and even today, it's even worse, with "hearts adjusting to that stricct September drum"). I think that poets/Manson is a great line, along with what follows - "and the white man dancing", not caring.

kleinschmidt · Post by **kleinschmidt** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 7:11 pm

Geoffrey wrote:My least favourite LC song is called 'Leaving Greensleeves', closely followed by 'The Future' - not because of their musical quality, but because of what they represent. It is generally believed that 'Greensleeves' was composed by Henry VIII - for his future wife, Anne Boleyn. After marriage he ordered that her head be cut off with a sword. He ordered that Catherine Howard, a subsequent wife, have her head chopped off with an axe. I could never fathom Leonard's consistency in bemoaning the death of Joan of Arc while simultaneously honouring an egoistic and womanising megalomaniac who coldy executed two wives on a whim. The song should be forgotten, not promoted. Charles Manson is also given space in the lyrics of one of LC's songs, and this is not right. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but it seems immoral to glorify killers by immortalising their names in song. Now, let's see one of you justify that lot.

Are you for real???

sulis · Post by **sulis** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 2:20 am

Geoffrey, on the contrary, most "nice" lyricists would avoid darkness, Leonard doesn't because somebody needs to heal the wounds, not by ignoring them................or would you prefer they stay in the shadows?

Geoffrey · Post by **Geoffrey** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 9:25 am

Hello - thank you for reading my message. My point is that criminals, even murderers, are sometimes rewarded with fame - albeit in the guise if notoriety. They hold television interviews in prison, are featured in multiple-page newspaper articles - and enjoy a virtual celebrity status that could possibly encourage others. Perhaps we can take a lesson from Yoko Ono, who, when involved with any programmes concerning her late husband, does her utmost to discourage any focus upon his killer. Of course, there is no need to be fanatical about it - but sometimes it just is not necessary to put these terrible people in the limelight - because it can be destructive. The book title 'Flowers for Hitler' was more innocent, in a way, because it is not being directed into a song and dance environment of merriment. It was wrong to mention Manson in a song, even though he is already a house-hold name, because it sends into society the wrong signal to coming generations. And when Leonard ambiguously sings about 'lousy poets' trying to sound like like Manson it can be interpreted as if he is trying to elevate him out of the mediocre - a figure of literature to which an aspiring poet might aim. Why does Leonard endearingly call Manson 'Charlie'?

tomsakic · Post by **tomsakic** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 11:35 am

I still see it in totally opposite light, as I wrote above, Geoffrey. From the song it's clear that Charlie Manson comes in as the metaphor of the worst that culture, as depicted in The Future, has to offer. Nothing to do with fame or glorification. Also, Manson as "a figure of literature to which an aspiring poet might aim" - I always heard "poets trying to sound like Charlie Manson" differently. Not that Manson is model figure. Manson, I believe, like many lunatics and crazy serial killers, was thihking of himself as the prophet or new priest. The darkness of the hole in which the culture (the one described in The Future) is nowadays is epitomized in serial kilers, exactly as you say.

My point is that criminals, even murderers, are sometimes rewarded with fame - albeit in the guise if notoriety. They hold television interviews in prison, are featured in multiple-page newspaper articles - and enjoy a virtual celebrity status that could possibly encourage others.

I'd say that Cohen's statement in this song is the same - because the song has to be read not literary; it is not the celebration of Manson's society (although its subject/narrator is delivering it in such way), but quite contrary - because of such performance, the reader has to know that the truth is out of the song, that its message is outside the craziness of song's narrator. It is murder, and it is not supposed to be, or, You see, it's Manson's society, full of Mansons and Stalins, and Hiroshimas and abortions. (What reminds me on Morgan Freeman's character's opinion about children in David Fincher's Seven, which is the same as here: "the future is murder, so why to have children").

So, that the situation (of The Future's society) is bad proves the new poets: little, lousy, who think that they have to sound like Charlie Manson. Actually, it's exactly what you're saying, Geoffrey, the song says what you're writing now! That poets (you say celebritites, but in Cohen's worldview /and mine/ the poets are those who're called to say the truth about the world) of modern society are Charlie Manson and a likes. So, it's murder.

Geoffrey · Post by **Geoffrey** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 11:50 am

Dear Tom,
Thank you so much for taking the time to help me come to terms with the inclusion of Charles Manson's name in song lyrics. The fact that he and Leonard were born in the latter half of 1934 was never enough reason to imagine an affinity between them. I looked for consistency; if this architect of the Tate/La Bianca killings was warmly called 'Charlie', then why wasn't Stalin called 'Joe'? But it was really the 'Natural Born Killers' entanglement which worried me - that a cinema screen could be the heliport on which a sub-culture could land and recruit impressionable minds into a world of pointless bloodshed, embraced by Leonard's musical compositions. I have considered and discounted the line 'Let's take a lesson from these autumn leaves, they waste no time waiting for the snow' as an enticement to suicide. I now believe he meant that it's futile to try to hang onto something that can never be owned - and that he was simply rephrasing Jesus' rhetorical question: "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" If your life is a leaf it is the seasons who 'tear down and condemn' according to their natural law - life should not be taken by man. And notice how Leonard indirectly declares in 'Chelsea Hotel' that he is mere flesh and blood - not by his lyrical confession to having engaged in a decadent sexual séance with Janis, but by saying he 'can't keep track of each fallen robin'. In Matthew's tenth chapter Jesus says that God knows whenever a bird drops to the ground, unlike Leonard. And in an interview given by Manson we have the declaration: "I'm not your devil and I'm not your God - I'm Charles Manson." Calling this monster 'Charlie' indicates familiarity or fondness - but it was a mistake to allow him to creep into this song in any form. Yet Leonard isn't perfect or divine - as we learned from the unmonitored robins - but he's quite close to being so.

tomsakic · Post by **tomsakic** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 11:56 am

Well, Tarantino/Stone movie is another thing. It's called misuse I believe.

Waiting For Suzanne · Post by **Waiting For Suzanne** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 6:11 pm

yeah jazz police too probably.

whiterosary · Post by **whiterosary** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 6:47 pm

I remember dislkiing most of "Death Of A Ladies Man" (I only had it on loan so didnt' really live with it for long). Is it worth revisiting, any champions of this album here?

lizzytysh · Post by **lizzytysh** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 7:54 pm

Geoffrey ~

Is your new avatar a staple gun

??

If so, what are the other, what appear to be, attachments that go with it

??

~ Lizzy

thequeenisdead · Post by **thequeenisdead** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 9:30 pm

I can never seem to get past the saxophone intro on "There Ain't No Cure For Love"-- it sounds like an episode of Full House. Yuck.

lazariuk · Post by **lazariuk** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 8:37 am

lizzytysh wrote:Geoffrey ~

Is your new avatar a staple gun ??

If so, what are the other, what appear to be, attachments that go with it ??

~ Lizzy

To me it looks more like a tool that is used for opening locks. You need to be leaning a certain way to see that.

Jack