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Don't you think Undertow takes on a whole new meaning since the tsunami? It feels to me like a premonition...

"Ditched on a beach where the sea hates to go"? Doesn't sound to me very much like a tsunami's way of feeling about beaches...

Tom, this could be discussed. In view of the damages, it could also be seen as sheer hatred.

Eirlys, this poem was written well before DH.

Here, is a copy of a post by Courtois about that :

Thanks all. I hope it's no copyright problem giving the alternate words to Undertow here. I learned them by heart from an issue of Intensity, the fan magazine that has been discontinued. I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think this poem has appeared in a volume of poetry.

I set out for love but I did not know
I'd be caught in the grip of an undertow
To be washed to a shore where the sea needs to go
With a child in my arms and a chill in my soul
And my heart the size of a begging bowl.

To be honest, I prefer this version: 'a shore where the sea needs [rather than 'hates'] to go' expresses inevitability and has richer rhyme; and 'my heart the size [rather than 'shape'] of a begging bowl' always sounded poignant for the image of a heart expanded with sorrow and experience, but ending up empty, like an unfortunate beggar's bowl. (This image collapses, of course, if you have a tiny begging bowl in mind, in which case you could think of a shrivelled, shrunken heart.)

Courtois

And here a link toward another of his post, regarding the time of creation of the poem :
viewtopic.php?p=30466&highlight=undertow#30466

Tchocolatl wrote:Tom, this could be discussed. In view of the damages, it could also be seen as sheer hatred.

The sea doesn't hate the beach. The sea hates to go there. But you're right, Tchoco, this could, and should, be discussed. For now just a few remarks:

Tchocolatl wrote:Here, is a copy of a post by Courtois about that :

Courtois wrote:I set out for love but I did not know
I'd be caught in the grip of an undertow
To be washed to a shore where the sea needs to go
With a child in my arms and a chill in my soul
And my heart the size of a begging bowl.

To be honest, I prefer this version: 'a shore where the sea needs [rather than 'hates'] to go' expresses inevitability and has richer rhyme; and 'my heart the size [rather than 'shape'] of a begging bowl' always sounded poignant for the image of a heart expanded with sorrow and experience, but ending up empty, like an unfortunate beggar's bowl. (This image collapses, of course, if you have a tiny begging bowl in mind, in which case you could think of a shrivelled, shrunken heart.)

I disagree with Courtois' position. "needs" expresses inevitability, but "hates" underlines the desolation of the beach, and desolation, rather than inevitability is the issue at hand. The sonics of "sea needs" might seem better at first sight, but they'd stress the sea rather than the person, and the person is topical, not the sea.

The "begging bowl" isn't simply a beggar's bowl, and not at all "an unfortunate's beggar's bowl". It is a central symbol in Buddhism, representing the historical Buddha himself.

Legend has it the Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree determined to win enlightenment or die, he was offered a bowl of rice by Sujata, a young woman. The Buddha is said to have divided the rice up and ate a little each day until he finally won enlightenment. Then the Buddha threw what was a bowl into the river to signify his renunciation of all possessions. This is considered the root of the "begging bowl" in Buddhist tradition. Leonard, beyond doubt, will have been aware of that every single one of the probably many times he worked on "Undertow" before officially releasing it.

The voice of "Undertow" doesn't set out for love anymore, at least not in the most common sense. This speaker sets out for the transcendental, for "G-d", which by the way, we already agreed on that, Thoco, is "Love". I believe Leonard replaced "for love" by "one night" to avoid "Undertow" being misunderstood as a "love song" in one of the more common senses of the expression.

"Undertow", rather than being a premonition of the Tsunami cataclysm, is about the condition humana as such. On the quest for enlightenment a soul might find itself "ditched on a beach", a very displeasing one, a beach where even "the sea hates to go". But this human has to go there, with a "heart" (think of Dorothy's companions in the Land of Oz", if you want) "the shape of a begging bowl" (i. e. in the spirit of the historical Buddha).

Sorry, Tchoco, if these thoughts are still somewhat impressionist, and preliminary, almost tentative, but I postponed a detailed analysis of "Undertow" because of my present work on "To A Teacher". Thus I can only try to reproduce a few random thoughts...

As an afterthought: I didn't mention I prefer "beach" over "shore" because it starts with a "b" like "begging bowl"...

Cheers for now.

tom

I was not serious, Tom, about a tsunami with a temper, that brokes everything in the places it hates to go.

I read your comments with great interest pleasure.

Love and love can be so similar at some times. "On the quest for enlightenment a soul might find itself "ditched on a beach", a very displeasing one, a beach where even "the sea hates to go"." As I think everybody is on the path through enlightenment, counsciously or not (even willingly or not) - ordinary evolution, if you prefer, heartbreaks can also be "the crack" (in everything, that's how the light gets in). The sea is a powerful symbol. Water is the symbol for human emotions.

Tchocolatl wrote:The sea is a powerful symbol. Water is the symbol for human emotions.

Dear Tchocolatl,

thank you for your interest, and your subsequent remarks, again very enlightening. Just one more afterthought for now before I return to "the teacher":

Water is for emotion, you're right about that. But there's more to it. In the Tarot deck the element water is represented by the "Cups", and the "Cups" can be symbolized (or realized) by anything that can contain water, for example by a bowl.

The Cups themselves have been, by some Christian Qabalists, connected to the lines "Give us today our daily bread" (the historical Buddha at a little each day from the "original begging bowl"). The idea behind this connection is that of "sustaining" - like you would sustain a "child in your arms"?

I'll try not to talk about "the sea" now, planning to touch on it later, when "The Faith" and "Undertow" can be studied as independently readable but integral parts of "Dear Heather", still a long way to go, at least for me...

tom

PS: Of course you weren't serious about an ill-tempered Tsunami...

Hum-hum. Yes. It is not necessary to arrive to a concessus for me to be happy, you know. What I like is to share different points of view. Besides, symbols have, most of the time, different levels. "Your" level is very intellectual and very interesting. I certainly mule this over and over for a while.

What I was seing, is at another level, more - you know - in the reporter style he has also : How many women find themselves for a while in this emotional position at the ending of a union with the father of their child(ren) (here we can also say that this is this much vulnerable part ourselves that we have to take care of in those kind of distressing moments) in our time of fast social changes? Many. Many. The majority. It is - can we say this? - a fact of society, he is the witness and have made a song about, like often, like a report of the reality around him.

There is no need for a consensus - there's a consensus between us about that, Tchoco.

Reading a Cohen text like "Undertow", to me, has to be done in a way similar to the way a Talmudic student reads the Torah. Cohen had been taught by his maternal grandfather not to be content with the story a passage in the Bible tells, but to dig deeper, and deeper still. Every word has to be carefully weighed, looking for hidden meanings, additional layers of thought, hints at a revelation.

And he applies what he learnt then every time he writes a line.

Thus I can agree with the reading of your latest post on this thread, but feel that it is not sufficient. When someone reads a parable, let's say one of those Jesus Christ told according to the Gospel, for example the "return of the prodigal son", we're not content with analyzing the difficult psychological situation the returing son is in, nor with stating the complicated feelings of the father, or of the brother who had stayed at home.

Of course we'll have to do all this, but we soon realize that this is just a preliminary work. We try to get closer to the structure of the parable's surface doing this. And then, in a next step, we have to look at the larger context: Why is this story told (not as a means in itself, of course), when is it told, to whom? What did Jesus really want to tell when telling the story?

When we take up this task, we'll look for multiple meanings of words and symbols. We look for similar stories elsewhere. We do what Lévi-Strauss tried to do in "Le cru et le cuit", we do what Qabalists do with the scripture. We try to cover every aspect of the story and it's wording, and then we arrive at a vision of what the story is really about.

No details as to "Undertow" this time...

Cheers
tom

Dear Tom, this is exactly how I see the question. For me all layers are equally important. Lets talk through a symbol, to make this post shorter as possible : the David Star "what is below is like what is above".

which brings us "by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to" not "to Howth Castle and Environs" but to "The Faith":
a cross on every hill,
a star, a minaret
symbolizing the three great monotheistic religions



tom

"Us" maybe but without "me" surely : this brain storming is blowing me a thousand kisses deep toward A Thousand Kisses Deep. Try one after the other, it is like, let say green grapes with a big full orange.

tom.d.stiller wrote:"Ditched on a beach where the sea hates to go"? Doesn't sound to me very much like a tsunami's way of feeling about beaches...

Hahahaha...

TOM <3

Tchocolatl wrote:"Us" maybe but without "me" surely : this brain storming is blowing me a thousand kisses deep toward A Thousand Kisses Deep. Try one after the other, it is like, let say green grapes with a big full orange.

Dear Tchoco,

I believe that "Dear Heather" isn't just a collection of songs that should be looked at as independent works of musico-poetic art. Of course we listen to it one after the other, and we'll start our exploration into this Gesamtkunstwerk by looking at the parts.

But we shouldn't, in the long run, ignore the interdependencies of the parts. It is a bit like analyzing an opera. We can try to understand each aria, as a separate "song", and we have to do this. But we'll never get close to the whole work that way. Something essential will be missing when we achieved that.

You're probably aware of that without these lines, but I'll push that "Submit" button anyway.

Cheers
tom

Yes I think also that the order of the tracks of DH was meant and is not a coincidence. If this is the fact that masks my little tasty operation, let me try again : DH is the grape, and TNS the Orange (all complete, entire, and well ordonate in themselves and differents). Take a chance to mix these two songs of both albums and enjoy the result! It is great! I least I find it great.