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Well, when you're not born speaker of English, you can make a fool of yourself very easy. The song about transcendental moment of dawn, we all thought, until Anjani's interview.

http://www.cs.umb.edu/~whaber/Monte/Pla ... -plat.html
http://www.garden-picture.com/fotoseite ... mggr3.html

Merriam-Webster Online:

Main Entry: morning glory
Function: noun
: any of various usually twining plants (genus Ipomoea of the family Convolvulaceae, the morning-glory family) with showy trumpet-shaped flowers; broadly : a plant of the morning-glory family including herbs, shrubs, or trees with alternate leaves and regular pentamerous flowers

Tom in England it has a rude meaning.

Dear Tom ~

Do not rule out the flower having inspired the concept; and Leonard's infamous double entendres. The morning glories have always had an association here as celebrations of beautiful mornings. You need not resign yourself to the literal. The transcendental moment of dawn is worth embracing. Your embrace, and mine, as well.

~ Lizzy

Hi Tom,
I agree with Lizzy, perception is everything, yours that is, thats whats important and as Jennifer W once said, Leonard's work is like a diamond, constanly changing its beauty whatever way you the light hits it when you look at it.

Paula, Morning Glory, hmm, thats a new one on me, although I have heard of "afternoon delight".

Kieron

I did know for third meaning ("morning erection" ), but I left that as possible conotation to the listeners/readers. I considered the translation and the song again, and it cannot be connected directly and clearly to flower (I have confirmation for same thing in French translation), so I'll put Miriam-Webster definition bellow the song, put few Anjani's word about inspiration, and that will be it.
Also, I don't see connection between transcendetal moment and flower, as I see it between transcendental moment and the dawn.
I liked the song on first hearing, I had Leonard's backyard in mind (I think it was mentioned in TNS reviews - LC sat there with journalist?), and there's his garage studio (if I got that right from TNS press). Also, I couldn't stop thinking about backyard back there in Montreal, where he buried note he wrote after his father's funeral (his first poetry work).
I am not musically trained, but I have this crazy idea that I hear Tacoma Trailer in the background, while Leonard tell his words in doubled voice

" Julian returned home one day proudly carrying a drawing he'd made at Heath House Infant's School. He recalls: 'I trundled home from school and came walking up with one of my watercolour paintings. It was just a bunch of stars and this blonde girl I knew at school. And dad said: 'What's this?' I said: 'It's Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds!' "

In "infant's school"!!!
(Kids were into drugs awfully early in those days!)

However, for their own safety, due to their great popularity,
all of the Beatles were totally insulated from the popular
culture of their times.

So of course everyone believed Lennon when he sworn
that he just didn't know that the line was common kid's code
for LSD. "Boy, was I ever hoodwinked about that!", I think he said:
"If only I'd known in time, then of course I would have had all the
circulating Sgt Peppers albums recalled, and changed
the line to: "Lucy in the Sky with a Jack Daniels" or something.
But it was too late. While the Beatles may or may not be bigger
than Jesus (- there seems to be some question about that -)
even with Him on our side, there's just no screwing with the
record company like that. At least I did right by Jillian.
He won't be pulling a stunt like that again! "

~~~

And now we have Leonard Cohen's very own
"lucy in the sky" incident.

Cohen however is not insulated from the people. He's hip.
He hears their pain. In fact his entire art is based on rubbing
their pain in as hard as he can.

And there's just no way Cohen can claim that he simply didn't know
--what every hippie and Aztec high priest has always known
--about Morning Glory seeds!

http://www.erowid.org/plants/morning_gl ... sics.shtml

~greg.

I think you are spot on Greg. Your wasted youth wasn't wasted after all

Well, perhaps the transcendance can be related to the flower? This will make Tom Sakic very happy . Tom ~ your footnotes on this one song are going to end up longer than the album itself . I honestly don't think Leonard had that in mind, of course ~ but I'll study the lyrics from that perspective, and see what I come up with. He does tend to get as much out of a lyric as possible .

You mean he didn't think on LSD?

I can't say I am surprised by this fourth meaning, there's LSD all around in his poetry, ie in "My Life In Art" (thrown acid), Beautiful Losers, and that incident with the chips with acid in Chelsea Hotel...

Several varieties of morning glory seeds including a white variety known as Heavenly Gates (if I remember) are said to have psychedelic properties similar to LSD. They were eaten for such in the sixties I've heard tell, but have never experienced them myself. When I hear the word "trancendental" I think someone's been reading Ralph Waldo Emerson or similar works by his group of the 19th century poet/philosophers.

Hi Tom ~

It's not that all the elements aren't there for this particular interpretation. They certainly are ~ including, no doubt, Leonard's awareness. It's just whether Leonard would combine them as such at this particular point in his life, for this particular album. There are said to be all the necessary ingredients for bombs in our kitchen cupboards. We may know that, but would we combine them to create one ~ therein, lies the question .

If this song was written as a poem years ago, I'll find more creedence in the possibility.....even so, putting it on this, particular album remains an unaddressed quandary.

~ Lizzy

It seems (well, to me) that he played on all the levels the meaning could have. First it would not be the first time for him to juxtapose sex and religion (transcendantal moment here). And he was never afraid by rude meanings, others say pornographic poetic sketches. This Morning Glory remimbers me of Janapene erotism of the geisha's epoch when erotism was a fine art and the various positions and body parts etc. got such glorious and delicate names.

And the whole song, the first time I heard it, I had the feeling it was talking about a false search of enlightning (He said something like this more clearly about drugs somewhere).

In the 60's drugs was a kind of religion - I am thinking of the film Hair, the scene of LSD given like hosts by LSD "priests" on people's tongs among the kneeled crowd of an out-door music concert

I love the idea of juxtaposition of sex and religion in this song.

This thought is exquisite: "This Morning Glory remimbers me of Janapene erotism of the geisha's epoch when erotism was a fine art and the various positions and body parts etc. got such glorious and delicate names."