Quotations

Henrik · Post by **Henrik** » Wed Sep 18, 2002 1:18 pm

Hi all.
Forgive a tiresome pedantic, but I just can't get out of my head that the quotation of The Guests on the homepage here gives the impression of being a whole poem, it isn't marked as an outtake. Hence the whole idea of the lines "the openhearted many, the brokenhearted few" given again at the end of the song (with that chorus, you all know it, in between them) turned the other way: "the brokenhearted many, the openhearted few" is all lost. That line quoted here, isolated from the rest, becomes meaningless. One who visits the site and doesn't know the song will have the wrong idea of Leonard Cohen as poet. Darn. Hasn't anyone thought of that?

Although i am embarassed to have a complaint to come with to this otherwise excellent site, I had to have it said.

Regards and thanks
Henrik

lizzytysh · Post by **lizzytysh** » Wed Sep 18, 2002 2:12 pm

That's an excellent point, Henrik. I'd never considered it from that perspective, but I think you're right. Leonard so often does that very thing, very effectively, to make instantly apparent the other side, the underside, and the contradictions, ambivalences, ambiguities, and paradoxes of so many things. Bringing another verse and that additional twist would definitely add to the first impression of Leonard for newcomers, making his additional layering[s] instantly apparent. Perhaps Jarkko might reposition the verse, with that addition[

].

-

~Lizzytysh

Edit: I see that beneath the verse on the main page, it says "Part of 'The Guests'." I don't know if Jarkko changed it to that after reading your post, or if that's how it was already.

Henrik · Post by **Henrik** » Thu Sep 19, 2002 2:19 am

Hey, yeah! Thanks, Jarkko, I can sleep again.
Hope you don't see me as this moping grumpy from Sweden after posting that, but it HAS been giving me the fidgets for a while.

Even a thing like me saying "with that chorus, you all know it, in between them" and not, which would be the correct: "with that chorus AND the other verses in between them", will make me frown for hours, in the state I am in right now. (But I guess I am not the only one here with periods of monomanic obsession with LC:s songs, of different shades...)
By the way, has anyone seen Miller's Crossing? I saw it three times this weekend only. For anyone who doesn't know it's a Film Noir pastiche by the Coen brothers. The hardboiled gangster-dialogue will make you laugh your head off:
"You haven't bought any licence to kill bookies and today I aint selling any. So take your flunky and dangle".
Haha. Well, anyway, that's where I got the expression "giving him the fidgets" from ("Maybe he's got a wart on his ferny, giving him the fidgets")

See you all.
/ H.

Post by **jarkko** » Thu Sep 19, 2002 7:42 am

Have sweat and light-hearted dreams, Henrik!
Your observation was acute, and I added "Part of ---" to the source line. There is no room for the whole poem on the front page, and those two stanzas make a good welcome greeting (although indeed some senses of the whole song get lost).
Jarkko