I have been working on this for a couple of days now.
And I don't know where I am with it.
But my father is 93, and not doing well, and I don't think
I'm going to have much more time to waste on this.
So I'll post it as is, and just hope that it makes some sense.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have a problem. I really like Mat James.
But I really really really really really
hate his approach to this song!
I hate it so much that for a couple of days now I have been working
on a post in which I excoriate him for it, as pleasantly as I can.
However, as necessary and urgent as it is to do that,
that part of my response is currently stuck between two
different sequencings of a couple of subclauses, or whatever.
And I've decided that for now it's best for me to just post
a precis of my dreadfully dull, but 100% correct explanation
of the song, and then maybe post the rest later.
~~~~~~~~~
Ok.
The most germane comment by far so far was John Etherington's
The song would be an interesting one to compare with "Story of Isaac",
which is also on the "Songs From a Room" album.
Well.
If you've never noticed it before, then it may come as a shock
to realize that there is no mention at all in Leonard Cohen's "Story of Isaac"
of any lamb (or ram), nor the slightest hint in it anywhere about the
historically single most famous "happy" denouement of them all.
("Happy" in quotes because, obviously, not so for the ram.
Which is an important point that no child could ever fail to notice.)
In fact, the absence of a ram in Leonard's "Story of Isaac"
is such a glaring omission, and it's so obviously filled by
the lamb in "The Butcher", that I have no doubt at all
that Leonard Cohen's original working title for "The Butcher"
was "Story of Isaac, Part Deux".
In any case, the two songs really should be considered an inseparable dyad.
~~
Before he was led astray by Mat (who will be symbolized by Lucifer
in my upcoming post) John already knew the correct approach to all of Leonard
Cohen's songs. (Namely, listen to them for the proper biblical duration of 40 years
before attempting any comment at all.) And he had also arrived at what is essentially
the correct understanding of the gist of this one -
John Etherington wrote:I've known the song for forty years, but was only seventeen
when I listened to it mostly, and was not able to fully understand the song at that time.
I just absorbed the words and the mood of the song. On a mundane level, I've tended
to think it as being about the old and young criticising each other without fully
understanding the reasons why each other are doing what they do.
Never in history, as far as I know, have successive generations
had a harder time understanding each other than in the 1960s.
(Perhaps because of WWII, a supposedly "just war", that was
therefore followed by very little tolerance for "readjustment problems".
(Not that they've been dealt any better since then. See eg "In the Valley of Elah".))
And "The Butcher" is as succinct and powerful a summary of all those conversations
and confrontations as any I know of. It is indeed a dialogue between the generations.
But it is also a dialogue between Leonard and his father.
Arguments about the war (Vietnam) between fathers and sons
were emblematic of the times. But Leonard was not, strictly speaking,
a member of the Pepsi Generation. (He was not threatened by the draft, etc.)
Nevertheless, as the first born and only son of a Cohen (or Kohanim)
he could and did use that as his way in to relate to the popular
contemporary arguments of situation ethics and plain common sense
proposed by his younger generation audience, against the arguments
of obligation to country and tradition ("I go round and round")
proposed by their parents
"I had a very Messianic childhood," he recalls.
"I was told I was a descendant of Aaron, the high priest.
My parents actually thought we were Cohen - the real thing.
I was expected to grow into manhood leading other men."
- Richard Goldstein's article,
- Village Voice, 1967
-
http://www.webheights.net/speakingcohen/villv67.htm
(aside: "I was expected to grow into manhood leading other men"
=> "lead on my son, it is your world", etc.)
Patrice Clos' site, "Diamonds in the Lines, The Songs Prologues"
(here:
http://perso.orange.fr/pilgraeme/ )
is helpful about this. Not directly for "The Butcher", ("I couldn't find a prologue for that song",)
but indirectly via some of Cohen's comments about "Story of Isaac"
(here:
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/pilgraeme/s ... _isaac.htm )
eg
...
I sing this song for the butchers and the victims. (Stockholm 03/04/72)
...
There is a place where the generations often meet.
A very curious place. It's generally an altar or a chopping block.
This is a song for my father. (Paris 20/10/74 )
...
~~~
THE BUTCHER
The title refers to at least 3 distinct things.
(I'll mention the 3rd later.)
First it refers to the "you" in the lines
You who stand above them now,
your hatchets blunt and bloody,
from the "Story of Isaac". These are the same butchers
that Dylan refers to as "Masters of War", --the "you" in
You hide in your mansion
While the young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
Second, it refers to Leonard's own father. But obviously in a very different sense.
After the destruction of the Second Temple and the suspension of sacrificial offerings,
the formal role of priests in sacrificial services came to an end.
-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohen
And I don't know if they still have a role in the kosher slaughter of animals, or not.
But in any case, for anyone who has read the Pentateuch, (or 1st 5 books of the
Old Testament if you prefer,) using "Butcher" as a metaphor for "Priest" or "Kohanim"
is clear, natural, and inevitable. And perhaps not even particularly derogatory.
In fact Leonard calling his father "butcher" in this context, in that sense,
is really just good natured ribbing him for his claim to be a true descendant
of Aaron. And it gets the appropriately good natured shoulder-shrug
response from his father: ---"I am what I am".
(Remember, they're both drunk! "
We stopped to drink some wine.
Then he threw the bottle over. / Broke a minute later".
- father-son "quality time".)
AND IT REALLY IS "WHAT IT IS" IS!
I know I promised this would be a quick concise summary
of one reasonable interpretation of "The Butcher". And so
it would be inappropriate here to go into into all the reasons
why certain other interpretations are, let's just say a little
less reasonable. Nevertheless, "seeing as how" I am what I am,
and can't help it, "like it or lump it", I have no choice but to
confront immediately and head on that monstrously mephistophelian
misinterpretation of the line "I am what I am" in terms of Exodus 3:14,
that has been making the rounds lately, because it is the keystone
to this whole Tacoma Narrows Bridge type catastrophy of an interpretation
of the song that has been ossilatting more and more wildly out of control here.
In brief
Exodus 3:14
And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM:
and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel,
I AM hath sent me unto you.
(aside: It may be that "I am what I am" is an incorrect,
but a better translation of the Hebrew than is King James'
"I am that I am". And these
are interesting subjects.
But none of this matters for what I'll be saying here.)
It can't be claimed that Leonard Cohen was unaware
of the existence of Exodus 3:14 when he wrote "The Butcher".
(More likely it was tattooed on his genes before he was born.)
And while it is as unlikely as it would be pointless,
(which is the meaning of "in vain",) it would not be
physically impossible for him to refer to God by His
names, such as "I am that I am" or "I am what I am".
Did he not say after all:
"You say I took the name in vain / I don't even know the name.
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?"
However, in the specific context of "The Butcher",
for LC to want "I am what I am" to be interpreted
in that way is, as I will prove, as close to physically
impossible as finding Rush Limbaugh sitting very still
with earphones on, listening to Leonard Cohen.
Now, it's true that Leonard has frequently, and sometimes extendedly,
referred to Jesus in his writings. In fact in this very thread Cate
has quoted a poem of his, "BALLAD", that can be interpreted
in no other way.
Curious was the way that Cate quoted the poem, with a little isolated
word 'flowers' immediately preceding it, and no other explanation.
I don't say it was cowardly of her, - a way of getting out of
any possible argument about it. I say, rather, that it was a lovely
and poetic way of her to gently direct our attention to the fact
that lines like these in the poem --
He dipped the flower / into a wound
And hoped that a garden / would grow in his hand.
The hanging man shivered / at this gentle thrust
and ripped his flesh / from the flower’s touch,
and said in a voice / they had not heard,
‘Will petal find roots / In the wounds where I bleed?
‘Will minstrils learn songs / from a tongue which is torn
and sick be made whole / through rents in my skin?’
can shed light on lines like these in "The Butcher" -
I saw some flowers growing up / where that lamb fell down;
was I supposed to praise my Lord, / make some kind of joyful sound?
And they certainly do.
~~
But I already knew exactly what Cohen meant by
"I saw some flowers growing up where that lamb fell down;
Was I supposed to praise my Lord, make some kind of joyful sound?"
It means the same thing as "Even damnation is poisoned with rainbows,"
except going at it from the opposite direction. To rephrase it in as pedestrian
a way as I can: when the dove returns with the olive leaf in its beak,
and the masses are gawking and partying under the rainbow,
there will always be that small minority of us spoilsports
(10%ers, we're called) who say "Yeah, sure, that's all fine
and dandy, and lovely, and good and all. But I am sorry.
I just can't seem to forget that THE ENTIRE WORLD
WAS JUST SNUFFED OUT!"
This "poison from within" mind-set, as I used to call it in my journals
when I was kid, first struck me when I realized that I was enjoying
watching the 1959 movie "The Diary of Anne Franke", and then
suddenly realized that Hitler may very well have been responsible
for generating a greater number of entertaining movies than
anyone else in history. At moments like that I could appreciate
(although not subscribe to) the notion which strikes some people
sometimes, that all books and movies ought to be burnt.
It's for the same reason that a lot of people think that
all pornography should be banned. Which is because,
in a sense, that's what it all is!
Of course the question as to why we do enjoy watching
tragedies, is classic. And there is arguably no more problematic
an instance of the paradox than what's called "The Passion of The Christ".
It's the subject of LC's poem "BALLAD", and it is a subject that LC
has often alluded to. But it's a subject that, after all, is part and parcel
of our common Western cultural heritage. And the point which
has to be made by someone here is that very many people
have taken an interest in it, and have alluded to it, who never,
ever, subscribed to, and never felt the remotest temptation
to subscribe to, any version whatsoever of the "Apostles' Creed".
Which even includes those who may have lied, but who "came to God
in secret / and though they left him nourished they would not say
who healed", because, and I know that this is very hard for some
people to accept, they just aren't the same thing.
1. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
3. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
4. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
5. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again.
6. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
7. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
8. I believe in the Holy Spirit,
9. the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,
10. the forgiveness of sins,
11. the resurrection of the body,
12. and the life everlasting.
13. Amen.
We must remember that the poem "BALLAD" is from a book
of poems entitled "Let Us Compare Mythologies". And that
while it
is about Jesus, there isn't the slightest suggestion
in it that "Jesus was the Son of God". Of course even while
He was alive there were those who said He was the son of God.
And He may, or He may not, have Himself said so.
It's all part of the story. And it gets the appropriately
quick nod in LC's comparison of mythologies poem -
The people knew something
like a god had spoken
But those lines aren't an affirmation of the specifically and
uniquely Christian theological doctrine, the second assertion
in the Apostles' Creed. Looked at objectively, they are much
more like a denial of it.
Whereas if you interpret the line "I am what I am" in "The Butcher"
as being a reference to Exodus 3:14, --ie, as one of the many names
of the unnamable God, -- then you will necessarily have to interpret
"my only son" as meaning Jesus, as in the Apostles' Creed.
If the premise is granted, then the corollary is inescapable.
And then also by the same strict logic you will necessarily
have to interpret things like "silver needle" as a nail of the crucifixion!
And if that doesn't strike you, as it certainly does strike me,
as a perfect reductio ad absurdum argument against
that initial interpretation of "I am what I am",
then let me ask you this: Why?
Why would Leonard Cohen write like that?
Why would he embed these little isolated fragments of an alien theological
doctrine in his writings? These little secret messages and puzzles
for only the cognoscenti to decode, and then try to sell them as just songs?
Why would the man who wrote so explicitly
"I stuck a silver needle in my arm / it did some good / it did some harm",
(which -- with the exception of The Velvet Underground, who got
no air-play at all -- was exceedingly bold for the time)
be so coy and furtive and cowardly about revealing himself
to be a Christian, if that's what he was?
That Leonard Cohen is a secret closet Christian
is a claim that you just know some people would love to,
or die to, believe.
(I don't think that Mat is one of them.
But that's another post.)
And I am sorry for them. But "I am what I am" in "The Butcher"
is nothing but an extremely common expression that many people
often say without the slightest intent or fear that it will be
mistaken as a pointless reference to Exodus 3:14.
Most of them don't even know the reference.
Which of course can't said for Leonard Cohen.
So I think that it is probable that he did waste
two or three seconds worrying that the line might
be misinterpreted that way. And when he did, I'll bet
he then said these three things to himself, thus wasting
three seconds, one after the other, like this:
1) The phrase is so perfectly apt for the context that it is worth taking that chance.
2) The song makes no sense with "I am what I am" = God.
3) And anyway, a lot more people are going to misinterpret the song
as just a drug song. (Since people are what they are)
So the hell with it. And the hell with them. The line stays.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
