"Lullaby" - NEW SONG performed live (lyrics for 2 versions)

[Laura]

Anyone wanting to comment on that? I like this song, in a way (I have to listen it a few more times), there is a beautiful sadness in it. I really like the "password" lyric; looks like Cohen is getting modern! But it sounds a bit too "dear heather-ish" to me. Maybe... I'm afraid the time of "strong", overwhelming songs is gone.

Laura

[UrPal]

I like this song, in a way (I have to listen it a few more times), there is a beautiful sadness in it. I really like the "password" lyric; looks like Cohen is getting modern! But it sounds a bit too "dear heather-ish" to me. Maybe... I'm afraid the time of "strong", overwhelming songs is gone.

Laura

I haven't heard the song, but your description gives me hope that it satisfies expectations.

On the "strong, overwhelming songs" point, though I'm not there yet, I assume there is a certain level of aging at which the "sap no longer rises" with quite the same force of anxiety and passion but is replaced by a more mature yet distant and dispassionate way of seeing things which might perhaps be mistaken for frivolousness.

I'm big on Dear Heather myself (although, paradoxically perhaps, that seems as raunchy a number as Leonard has put down! And profound in a way too about how we quite often celebrate life's vitality in the repetition of the simple and relatively childlike instants in which we sometimes find ourselves).

I remember when I first played the album DH I had to play the song over repeatedly a few times, and was giggling away internally in a way I have rarely done externally since I was a little boy. Maybe it's a man thing, though I doubt it.

[Laura]

Maybe it's a man thing indeed, and maybe someday I'll find a man to explain it to me! There are a few songs on DH that I like (in a nice, distant sort of way), but the title song simply horrifies me! I had a friend, though, at the time when the album appeared who kept torturing me with that song... and he was a man.

Laura

[UrPal]

I'm sorry you have been tortured by it, Laura. I can understand how it could be torture if you don't "get it", and that you could just find it deeply irritating - all that oompah brass effect and rolling letterage. I have to admit I'm one of those people who also appreciates that "Moonlight sonata played backwards" computer vocalised thing tagged on at the end of the "More Best of" record, so forgive me my "bourgeois indulgences".

At the Leonard Cohen Came So Far For Beauty tribute show in Dublin the song Dear Heather was covered by Laurie Anderson, wife of Lou Reed. I think she used some sort of "octave dropping" processor on her voice to give it a Cohenesque basso profundo quality. It was certainly one of the more challenging songs of the evening, but I for one was pleased to hear it.

She is, of course, a woman, and I assume she gets it. Mind you, her best known song is Oh Superman, which, if you have heard it, does suggest that she she might be a bit on the "quirky" side herself.

Anyway, more impressions of Lullaby please....including a complete lyric if anyone has the time and inclination for those of us not all Dimeadozened up.

[lizzytysh]

Just for the record, I love the song Dear Heather and the "rolling letterage" [I've never heard that described better ]. It's such a fun song and had to be a blast for them to do.

I'm looking forward to listening to this song. I've been hoping for a long time that Leonard might write a song or some songs for his new grandson, Cassius. With the descriptions I've read here and on johnnie falafel's thread, it seems this could possibly be with Cassius in mind, along with Leonard's signature layerings of meaning, for all the rest of us. Perhaps I'm wrong with my inclusion of Cassius here, but I'm going to enjoy listening to the song with him in mind and hoping for some glimmers of singing to one's grandchild... now and for many years to come, when Leonard is no longer here... and maybe it's even a song that Cassius can 'grow into' as he himself becomes a man.




~ Lizzy

[Laura]

The lyrics (I marked the few words I just can't understand; I'd apreciate if anyone can figure out what they are):

I can't break the code
of our frozen love
It's too late to know
what the password was.

Refrain:
If your heart is torn
I don't want (no lie?)
If the night is long
here's my lullaby

Though they twist the news,
and the world believes
We will live our truth
be it on our knees.
Refrain

Through and out of life
Oh, I'll be ...? to you
When our dead arrive
I will salute them too.
Refrain

Though it's much too late,
and we've taken our stand
When they call up your name
we'll go hand in hand.
Refrain

[UrPal]

The part reproduced in the Rolling Stone interview reads:

"Through a net of lies, I'll come to you," his raspy voice intones through a plug-in speaker. "When the dead arise, I will wait there too/If your heart is torn, who can wonder why?/If the night is long, here's my lullaby."

so, though I've not heard and cannot therefore verify, this would suggest a slight revision on your lyric, Laura, as follows:

I can't break the code
of our frozen love
It's too late to know
what the password was.

Refrain:
If your heart is torn
who can wonder why?
If the night is long
here's my lullaby

Though they twist the news,
and the world believes
We will live our truth
be it on our knees.
Refrain

Through a net of lies
I will come to you
When our dead arrive
I will wait there too.
Refrain

Though it's much too late,
and we've taken our stand
When they call up your name
we'll go hand in hand.
Refrain

Of course, the journalist could have misheard or mis-transcribed, or LC could have made some changes between interview and performance.

Either way, thanks for taking the time and posting that Laura.

And just to slot it into this thread for completeness, the RS interview also included this insight into the purpose of the song:

"I thought that 'Lullabye' was just what everyone needs to get to sleep in these troubled times," he finally says, choosing each word slowly and carefully."

I wonder whether he chose the word "a" slowly and carefully before 'Lullabye' in that sentence too (and the journalist has accidentally slipped it)? Otherwise he would be making an uncharacteristicically grandiose claim for his own work, don't you think?

And is the song title "Lullaby" or "Lullabye"? If the latter then an intended double meaning/play on words becomes apparent - as it is perhaps the singer parting for sleep rather than the recumbent?

[lizzytysh]

Well, there goes my hope for its being for Cassius.

Oh, well... still waiting .


~ Lizzy

[MaryB]

Laura and UrPal,

The refrain as I heard it in Grand Prairie was,

If your heart is torn
I don't wonder why
If the night is long
Here's my lullaby

I hope this is accurate. I could have sworn I heard 'I don't wonder why' and not 'Who can wonder why' . Wish I remembered shorthand to get all the lyrics . Thanks Laura for posting what you got! The song was reminiscent of the flavor of 'Dear Heather' and 'Ten New Songs'. Need to hear it again to form an accurate opinion. I was just flabbergasted to hear a new song (was expecting 'something like this' at the Beacon) and just scribbled and sat there with my mouth ajar the whole time - what a gift it was!

Warmest regards,
Mary

[Laura]

Thank you, Mary. Now that you said it, I listen to the song, and "I don't wonder why" is obvious, I can't understand why I didn't hear it before! And "I will come to you" it is, you're right, UrPal. So the finally it goes like this:

I can't break the code
of our frozen love
It's too late to know
what the password was.

Refrain:
If your heart is torn
I don't wonder why.
If the night is long
here's my lullaby

Though they twist the news,
and the world believes
We will live our truth
be it on our knees.
Refrain

Through a net of lies
I will come to you
When our dead arrive
I will salute them too.
Refrain

Though it's much too late,
and we've taken our stand
When they call up your name
we'll go hand in hand.
Refrain

To me it sounds like something between "The Letters" and "On that day"... if that possible. Well, I am going to try tonight if it helps me sleep... "in these troubled times".
Laura

[martali]

Hi Laura,

I think that you were right in your first version as far as the 3rd stanza is concerned.
I'm just listening the song and obviously hear:

"Through a net of lies
I will come to you
When our dead arrive
I will salute them too"

(not "I will wait there too")

But I may be wrong since my English isn't that good.

The song is so beautiful for me........ I love it!

Cheers
Marta

[Laura]

Right! I got confused in the copy/paste process. Edited now.

Laura

[tomsakic]

I really like the "password" lyric; looks like Cohen is getting modern!

I always liked the line "the file on you complete" in A Thousand Kisses Deep, particularly knowing that it was dedicated to Sandy (member of this board who passed away) - and as much I heard about her story and early days of this website, before I was here, LC used to visit sometimes and it was chat, newsgroup... So after she died - after even LC's music couldn't help her - the file on her was complete (=I closed that small x button in corner of my screen and closed her file).

Of course there's more traditional meaning of "file" here (like - our /life, love, etc/ story is complete, filed) but there was a modern, internet touch already there, I think, Laura!

[AvidCohenFan]

Really, the new album is going to be all synchy like Dear Heather? I agree with this review: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2004/oc ... .shopping6
'Add that to the seeming disinterest in the music, and more than one voice has wondered if this alternately beguiling and bewildering album might be Cohen's last work. For all its charm and lyrical brilliance, you can't help hoping that isn't the case. Not just because it would be nice for him to retire from a universally regarded career on an unequivocal high, but because Dear Heather's best moments suggest that it would be a waste for him to stop now.'
Is it too late to reproduce the album? I want that reviewer to give it 5 stars.

[rgraff]

I haven't seen these posted. Transcribed from a recording of the April 3, 2009 Grand Prairie, TX concert, corrected per Marta, below:
NOTE: See my post below for different lyrics from the April 13, 2009 Oakland, CA concert recording.

I can’t break the code
of our frozen love.
It’s too late to know
what the password was.
If your heart is torn,
I don’t wonder why.
If the night is long,
here’s my lullaby.
Here’s my lullaby.

Though they twist the news
and the world believes,
we will live our truth,
be it on our knees.
If your heart is torn,
I don’t wonder why.
If the night is long,
here’s my lullaby.
Here’s my lullaby.

Through a net of lies,
oh, I will come to you.
When our dead arrive,
I will salute them too.
If your heart is torn,
I don’t wonder why.
If the night is long,
here’s my lullaby.
Here’s my lullaby.

Though it’s much too late,
and we’ve taken our stand.
And they call up your name,
we’ll go hand in hand.
If your heart is torn,
I don’t wonder why.
If the night is long,
here’s my lullaby.
Here’s my lullaby.