leonardcohenforum.com

lizzytysh wrote:Michael, hands down.

mickey_one wrote:it's not me but has the ring of Geoffrey, of whom I am a great fan and consider a real friend.

Cate wrote:I like that.
I sometimes feel like that little dot too xx

Geoffrey wrote:you know, when you think of it, love can be very dangerous because one is at its mercy. it cannot be governed because it is wild, it governs the person it inflicts. at the end of bizet's famous opera josé kills carmen because of jealousy, and if one feels no jealousy one feels no love. love dictates whether one feels jealous or not, love is a wonderful experience, but also can be destructive, as was with josé and carmen, romeo and juliette, heathcliffe and cathy, etc. it too often ends in tragedy because one becomes blind, the situation becomes out of one's control. this is why i cannot understand leonard cohen who sang: "a heavy burdon lifted from my soul, i heard that love was out of my control." i should rather have thought that a heavy burdon would have befallen his soul after learning that love was out of his control, not the other way round. david lynch sings: "strange what love does".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzgAIeRBBbk
you do not find love, it finds you - and it can make you do what you do not want to do, even kill. so why did leonard cohen breathe a sigh of relief? i don't know. i didn't even know that he had ever felt love. lust certainly, but when was he ever in love?

Violet wrote:is this a short of Lynch's?.. or from a short maybe?.. I've never seen this before.. trippy-lynchie.. cool song. Speaking of how strange love is, his Blue Velvet comes to mind.. [Frank Booth is such a sweet heart]..

.. anyway, I just wanted to take a stab at Leonard's meaning here, which to me has to do with the idea that if love is out of one's control, then one is at least relieved of having to feel "responsible" somehow for this befalling one. Whereas if it was a matter of choice, then one has only oneself to blame, which is of course more burdensome.. that's my take, anyway. As to his being in love, I've always assumed that's what he's talking about in many of his lyrics, no?

Geoffrey wrote:
lynch's song is from 'inland empire' a magnificent piece of pure art, a painting on film, just look at the colours, and everything on top. i saw it, or part of it, about 18 months or two years ago. so good is that film that i had to stop one hour before it finished (i think it's about 3 hours long) - so i have no idea how it ended. i turned it off on purpose, because i wanted to always have something to look forward to. i know that as soon as i have seen it all i will have great difficulty in finding an artwork so perfect. i learned my lesson after watching 'blue velvet', it destroyed every film i saw afterwards because they could never match that film. so now i know i have the rest of 'inland empire' to watch, i know there exists a film of par excellence awaiting me. just imagine the thrill of turning back the clock, if you could travel back in time and listen to leonard's records for the first time - what a bonanza! i have a friend who carries a jar of valium around. he never eats any of it because it exists to give him security - and that is enough. how wonderful if the mind could erase its memory and one could once again read 'beautiful losers' as if for the first time - but it cannot be, the damage is done, the virgin's hymen torn. leonard has not, at least to my knowledge, been in love; his lyrics do not in any case decry such a predicament. he talks of women's hair upon pillows, of a hinge in their thighs, how good they look from the back, all such physical and carnal lusting, but how often does he talk about a woman's mind, her personality? he doesn't, because he is concerned with their bodies, the flesh, sexual satisfaction. that is not by any means a criticism, merely an educated observation.

Violet wrote:offhand, re: Leonard.. you may be right. I actually realize I haven't really thought about his songs in that way.. they are so much about longing to me, maybe in something of an abstract sense.. though it's obvious some pretty famous songs of his were in some manner inspired by certain relationships with women. Chelsea Hotel is a pretty clear portrait though.. I mean, I guessed the song was about Janis before hearing that it was, and so he did conjure a portrait of her, but then he wasn't in love with her I don't think.. and Suzanne seems about something larger than a mere human almost.. she is longing itself maybe. I don't know, though.. with Maryanne, you sense this rather involved "backstory" with them.. you're right, it doesn't tell us much about her, I don't think (though now I'm going to listen to it with that in mind).. hmm.. interesting.. I'll think about this more.. see what I might find.