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Leonard gets a shout out

Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 5:43 am
by canuck
http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/

Stick with it - Leonard gets 'props from this influential music blog

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Everybody Knows

Everybody knows you’ve got to have an iPad app.

But the L.A. "Times" doesn’t have one. That’s what happens when you focus on the bottom line instead of the future, you get left behind.

Oh, there’s a $1.99 iPhone app, but that’s like watching on a tiny cathode ray TV when there’s HD. Something that you only do when necessary, when for some reason the free "Huffington Post" app with its great sliding feature suddenly stops functioning, which it never does.

You’ve got to have an iPad to appreciate it. Because it seems superfluous until you own one. Doesn’t your laptop do all this? But your laptop’s got a hard drive (except for the new MacBook Airs, which follow in the iPad’s footsteps) and has to boot up and is fragile. You treat an iPad like an expensive phone. You’re careful, but not that careful. You’ll take it to bed, read on it while you eat, you suddenly can surf everywhere. Is this a good thing?

We won’t bother to debate that, the future is here.

And those companies that realize this are surfing into the future, on the cutting edge. Turning the iPad into a giant remote control, like Comcast, like Sonos.

A Sonos system with a streaming service and iPad control is pure heaven. Sure, you can listen on headphones with your iPod everywhere, but sometimes you want bigger speakers, a bigger sound.

Which is how I ended up listening to Don Henley’s "Everybody Knows" while eating dinner. Inspired by the Eagles BBC concert of ‘73, I wanted to continue to listen to the band. But that would require me to stream MP3s from my computer, since the Eagles authorize no streaming services, and my computer was asleep. So I did the second best thing, I started streaming Don Henley’s greatest hits from Napster. And that’s when I heard "Everybody Knows".

It may be a Don Henley record, but it’s not a Don Henley song, "Everybody Knows" was written by Leonard Cohen.

Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor and the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

But nobody talks about it. Politicians paint a rosy future, where if you just buckled down you too could be rich.

Horseshit.

Everybody knows the boat is leaking
Everybody knows the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Is America going in the right direction? Explain to me again how cutting taxes on the rich whittles away the deficit? Even Ronald Reagan’s budget director thinks this is bullshit.

And that feeling when you lose a member of the family. It’s a deep hole of emptiness, people send you condolence cards but this poet nails the feeling better than your friends. You’re broken, and only a record can heal you.

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you’ve been faithful
Give or take a night or two

This is the stuff they make movies of. Only in the flicks, the woman is Demi Moore or somebody else naturally beautiful with a surgically-enhanced body. What about the imperfect? The women with muffintops? Those who look closer to the doctors on the "Twilight Zone" as opposed to someone on "Friends"? Would they trade up? Would they go for a fling with their coworker? Can they resist adding a bit of spice to their life?

Everybody knows you’ve been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows

Everybody’s ashamed of their bodies. But they’ll take their clothes off to do the dirty. Because sex only works when you throw off your inhibitions, you can’t think about your imperfections when you’re trying to achieve orgasm.

Everybody knows that it’s now or never

That’s what all the business coaches tell us.

What exactly are Tony Robbins’s qualifications again? All those life coaches, why do they know?

But really it’s less about carpe diem than desperation. That’s what usually gets us to act.

Everybody knows that you live forever
When you’ve done a line or two

Pity the drug abuser. If his life was really that good, he wouldn’t be partaking. You do drugs to escape. Sure, they can kill, but you want to forget for a while that we all end up a corpse and that life is more about drudgery than excitement.

Everybody knows the scene is dead

This is what hurts the music industry. Everybody inside wants to believe it’s the same as it ever was. That music drives the culture, that it’s more exciting than Angry Birds, more thrilling than the latest product from Apple, but that’s not true. Too often it’s just a dash for cash.

Don Henley got away with including a cover on his greatest hits package, why waste an original. But give him credit for impeccable taste, because Leonard Cohen’s song is as honest as "Hotel California", containing the same insightful examination of society’s underbelly, but it’s even more eloquent.

Canvass the populace. Send Jay out walking. Everybody does not know who Leonard Cohen is. Hell, he never even had a hit!

But Leonard Cohen just completed a three year tour.

There were 168 shows. And a total gross of 96+ million dollars.

Hell, there were 55 shows in 2010 alone. And the average attendance was 8,150. And the average ticket price was $104.30. The only acts in the Top 50 with a higher average ticket price were superstars, Bon Jovi, Paul McCartney, the Eagles, Roger Waters, Whitney Houston and Cher. Hell, Leonard Cohen is number thirty on the chart, higher than Eric Clapton, Carrie Underwood, Elton John and the Jonas Brothers.

Everybody knows that Leonard Cohen is an artist.

Everybody knows that Leonard Cohen is about meaning first.

Sure, everybody knows he’s not going to live forever, that this might be their last chance to see him, but they EMBRACED IT!

Everybody knows what’s got value, what touches their hearts, what lasts. Ignore the hypemeisters, because everybody knows.

The truth.

Re: Leonard gets a shout out

Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 8:38 pm
by LisaLCFan
Great to see such a glowing acknowledgement of Leonard Cohen, but they could have been a bit closer regarding the total number of concerts (I mean, really, they were off by about 100!). :roll: