Vickie, I hope the wedding went well and you managed to include some LC songs somewhere on the day and also found a closet Cohen friend from Canada or elsewhere!
As you were seasonally speaking, Fall (Autumn here) is my favourite time of the year too and I was born
the day after the last day of autumn! Thank you for saying I’ve made your alpha LC journey enjoyable. Like I've said previously, I have received more than I’ve given!
4, You know I always enjoy what you write as I can tell it comes from the heart! Over these last few months you have had me laughing out loud as well! And thanks for the belated Australia Day greeting!
Vickie,
I probably should give you some space and time and I’m not trying to push things along so please don’t feel pressured into listening to or talking about this album – just go at your own comfortable speed. In fact I don’t want to get to the end but I feel I have to post this now while I’m still a little brave about it all.
It’s difficult to write about this album knowing now that it was his last and the extreme efforts and challenging conditions under which it was produced – the CD liner notes mention some significant details. I will try not to let my emotions about everything get in the way of how I feel about the songs .... but of course it seems that inept concept is as inseparable now as it always was!
I know I’ve posted this before but it simply has to be shown here too –
When Leonard was only a few months away from death, he spoke to Yoshin David Radin who asked him why he was using the last ounces of his energy to produce yet another CD.
LC said: “There are hundreds of thousands of people in this world who have been so kind as to listen to my music and this is my last chance to thank them.”
Radin said: “Who says something like that? Only someone who had himself poured his heart into countless poems and songs and was so touched that his heart had been received — and that was at the core of the Leonard Cohen sangha, the community of those who could laugh and cry together with him.”
I say: Ah, who
does say that?....only someone called Leonard Cohen ....
I doubt that anyone can listen to this album without a tear in your eye. Every song resonates with so much feeling and has its own special place here. All the words to all of the songs are Leonard’s. There are so many meaningful lines in each and every song. Knowing you’re going would surely be a major factor! And he flat out tells us that he’s leaving the table and what a way to do it! But guess what - I feel he is still leaning across the old table with that little boy crooked smile, a twinkle in his eye and raising a glass to all of us!
About some songs - I was absolutely drawn to Treaty and String Reprise/Treaty from the first moment I heard them and they still are special to me. If I Didn’t Have Your Love tugs at my heart strings for sure. It Seemed The Better Way is another favourite. The words to it with the exception of a few lines and words are similar to a poem of the same name from Book of Longing 2006. Travelling Light has a few verses inspired by a poem called Travelling Light 31# from the same poetry book. Steer Your Way was first published listed as a poem in The New Yorker June 2016, before the album was released in October. The last verse (no chorus) from You Want It Darker was featured on an episode of Peaky Binders BBC TV show again in August just before the album was released in October. Its chorus, “Hineni Hineni, I’m ready, my Lord”, says exactly what I think Leonard meant to say as the last words.
Back to Treaty, before I listened to it I saw some lyrics to it online and knew I had heard some very similar words to them previously from Diamonds In The Mine sung in concerts over 32 years ago. As he is wont to do, Leonard has used those concert lines and recycled them in this song. There are some slight variations between concerts but so far these lines appear in my book like this:
(Wiesbaden 2nd Feb, Birmingham 28th Feb & Dublin (1) 2nd March 1985)
I see you changed the water into wine
That was a very pretty trick to do
I sit at your table every night
Baby, I just can't get drunk with you
And there are no letters in the mailbox...
(Basel 5th, Vienna 6th & 7th, Munich 9th, Boblington 10th March 1985)
I haven’t said a word since you’ve been gone
That any liar couldn’t say as well
I can’t believe the static coming on
You were my ground, you were my aerial
And there are no letters in the mail box...
Vickie wrote: I really do appreciate his integrity. I know he worked hard at it and struggled with it often, but in the end he had something he could stand by, and us with him. Obviously it was worth it to him, but I wonder if he knew that it was all worth it in our eyes too.
Vickie, I think your last phrase above is answered by Leonard’s response in red type to Radin’s question to him in the first quote at the start of this post. And your first sentence above about Leonard’s integrity reminded me of part of his quote below.
I’m generalising now but even though Leonard spoke these words below early in his singing career they have always been relative to him over the years and are still pertinent to him now in this last album and they will be so forever:
“It’s possible that sincerity might be confused with many things, especially in the world of music, where so many commercial currents run. In any case, it’s only a question of coloring. My music is a reflection of my personality, and my personality is a reflection of all that surrounds me. For me, seeing all of this as my work, the most important thing is to be worthy. So, I treat this world that surrounds me with the integrity and dignity necessary to bring it, through me, to everyone else. After that, it is the spiritual state of each person that determines how it will affect her or him. A person could think that I or my songs are sad because of that person’s own spiritual state, because they are not affected by the chaotic emotions that surround us, because they are living in another state, and I don’t mean to say that that state is more superficial or ordinary, on the contrary, it is the way of being forged by each individual, in which they live. But their power to understand will be affected by what they feel, and by the meaning they give to things. My songs are life and the facts of each day, and I am my songs”.
1974 LC interview by Jordi Sierra I Fabra
1978 published in Leonard Cohen by Alberto Manzano
You Want It Darker album was to be released 21st September on the day Leonard turned 82 years but it was delayed a month until 21st October and as fate would have it, just over two weeks later he passed away on 7th November 2016.
And now because I’m a Gemini and being of two minds; against my better judgement I’m going to kneel in the corner of my room and just for a moment silently weep .... I didn't make it to the corner....
NEXT DAY EDIT:
My better judgement has gently reminded me of the concept of acceptance. It also assures me that we haven't heard the last word from LC and there is more music, songs, words, poems to come. And who am I to doubt that because my better judgement is always right
