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Ciao Lizzytysh,

This is not an image I wish to contemplate.

Vesuvius

Then don't. Don't recall suggesting you do. Ciao.

HA HA HA HA !!!!!!

...but, of course, in the song, not only is Bethlehem a male, his shyness serves as an aphrodisiac for both the narrator and Babylon, who then apparently go on to cuckhold the poor sap at his own wedding ("Great Babylon was naked, she stood there trembling for me / Bethlehem inflamed us both, like the shy one at some orgy / And when we fell together.... etc.")!

Apparently you fared rather better than the other Shy One did!


David

Yes, my comparison began and ended with "Bethlehem........orgy."

Elizabethlehem...

~ not bad, Tom.

I first discovered Songs Of Love And Hate in the 70's when it was released on vinyl. I recall a friend of mine at that time commented on the album- "after hearing the A side I figured the the B side must be the songs of love Then I played the B side and still could not find the songs of love ."
I look back with amusement as I took his point though my own reponse to the album was very different. I saw and still do see this album as a landmark for the times. A brutally honest album- a ruthless self examination by LC, self effacing and possibly an end of the road confession of despair. Songs that reflect bitterness, disillusionment and alienation from love affairs and life. Songs whose viewpoint is at the bottom of a descent and now the only way is up.
"your pain is no credential here, it's just a shadow, shadow of my wound."
Last Years Man and Dress Rehearsal Rag show just how severe Leonard can be with himself and still have a shred of wry humour implied in the lines. And the affirmation that in spite of the dissapointments and failures- Love Calls You By Your Name. These songs were in stark but truthful contrast to many of the naive love songs of the 'stoned out' generation.
All credit to Leonard for venturing into new territory at that time.

Yup! I think it's that "stark but truthful contrast" to some of the other, more blissed-out love songs and anthems of the era that put a lot of people off from that album.

In retrospect, it's obvious that Leonard had always been navigating (more or less) that same territory. But whether because a lot of people first became aware of him through "Suzanne," "That's No Way To Say Good-Bye," "Winter Lady," or one of his other (relatively) less acerbic creations, or because the first versions of his material lots of people heard were by vocalists like Judy Collins, Noel Harrison [wasn't that his name?], Baez, et al. -- lots of people (myself included, at the time) falsley considered him to be kind of a Proto-hippie Elder, a spokesman for the more naive ideals of the times, rather than a poet immersed in exploring the contradictions and questions raised by those times and ideals.

(Somewhere in Nadel's book, I think, Leonard is quoted as saying that both "the embrace and the renunciation" of those ideals were more ambivalent in his work than a lot of people gave him credit for at the time.)

Whether it was because of the somewhat harsher-sounding production, the acidity of the lyrics, or the uncompromisingly razor-edged ferocity of his singing, LOVE AND HATE made it impossible for us to kid ourselves any longer.

D

Yes David, we could kid ouselves no longer. While Frank Zappa was challenging us right in yer face, Leonard was luring us into self-challenge. He was disturbing deeper waters.

I was confused by the title too, at first, until I realised that Love and Hate was exactly what all the songs were about. They are two sides of the same coin, and one can all too easily flip to the other.

Yeah, the duality of life that exists in us all...................
Georges