its4inthemorning wrote: Would, of course, like to hear your thoughts of SOLAH
Thank you for sharing your comments on
Songs of Love and Hate. What an awesome album, each track so different but still with themes that intertwine like Joan of Arc and 4 o’clock. I love how he does that. I had noticed it before, with the color green in a few songs of
Songs of Leonard Cohen and again the color of Nancy’s stockings is green in
Songs from a Room
The songs......You called it “taking the leap” into SOLAH, and that is exactly what it felt like when I first heard
Avalanche. Like I had jumped in and wouldn’t be getting out. It was amazing and another favorite of mine. I remember you saying that he didn’t play
The Stranger Song during his last tours perhaps because it would be difficult for older fingers, but yet he played
Avalanche. That is interesting. I have avoided reading threads about song meaning because I wonder sometimes if people try to see things that aren’t there, and also, I want to come to my own conclusions. I am having questions about some of these lyrics thought, so I might. To me the avalanche is that overwhelming something, that everything important, that LC is able to tap into with his art, and he bears that ability like a hump on his back while others worship him for it and come to him as if they have something in common with him. But they aren’t like him, because they can only be a part of the avalanche when he shows it to them; they can’t see it without him. Another thing I love about
Avalanche is that my husband actually liked this one!!
I love the lyrics in
Last Year’s Man too. My favorite thing about the verse you mention is the Jesus/Cain correlation. I have always found it interesting that men say women are attracted to ‘bad’ boys like Cain. Is it because men themselves want an excuse to be like him or because they despise him? I also love the verse about Bethlehem and Babylon and the lyrics, “skylight is like skin for a drum I’ll never mend”… where does that come from?
I like
Dress Rehearsal Rag partly because it captures such a depressing time in anyone’s life and a crossroad I have never been able to imagine coming to. People close to me have though, like my father, my sister, and my son, so I am curious about it and wonder about what it would be like to feel that way. I do love the lyrics about the memory of the girl with chestnut hair and how it makes him clench his fist.
You are right; it is hard to like
Diamonds in the Mine as much as his other songs. The way he growls it out is like he doesn’t even want us to like it and doesn’t like it so much himself either! When I played it for my husband, he just looked at me and said, “Okey Dokey then!”
I would love to see the link for that rock version of
Love Calls You by Your Name! It is one my favorites on the album too. He really gets me with the intimate way he says “And here, right here”. I could listen to that again and again. I love the way the music and lyrics gain momentum and then recede over and over. Leonard Cohen is just so good. (I have a hard time thinking of him in the past tense, I can't imagine how much you all miss him)
You didn’t talk about the other 3 songs, 2 of which are also favorites of mine (this album has so many!).
I was immediately taken by
Famous Blue Raincoat. I knew from Simmons biography that there have been covers of this song, and I wasn’t sure if I would recognize it. The beautiful melody felt more than vaguely familiar but not the words. My parents are gone and my sister said they never listened to him, so I don’t know where I heard it. I would have been 12 or 13 at the time, so it could have been anywhere I guess. Of course the lyrics are what I love about it most. The line about the gypsy thief with the rose in his teeth makes me wonder if it was a letter to himself. He signs it L. Cohen, but he called himself a gypsy boy in
Song Long Marianne, and he sounds so remorseful saying that he never tried to take away the trouble from Jane’s eyes. That sounds like the type of thing we might accuse other people of, not ourselves. Regardless, it is a beautiful and haunting song and the images are powerful.
The introduction to
Sing Another Song Boys was jarring after that, but he certainly did a good job of sounding bitter. I am very curious what this one is about. For now, the La la la’s at the end are my favorite part.
Joan of Arc, was a great ending for the album. I like how he says she complains “I want the kind of work I had before, a wedding dress or something white to wear upon my swollen appetite” and how she winces and cries in the end. It is sad and of course well known and inevitable how she dies, but so pretty the way he puts it and again a very haunting song.
Your post closed by saying “Except for Avalanche, I do not think LC played any of these songs in any of his 2008-2013 concerts”. Did you mean just the first 5 songs or all of the songs on the album?
Last of all, I am still curious if you think I should wait to watch the DVD
I’m Your Man until I have made it through all of his albums to the point in time it was made? I don’t want to spoil anything, but I also want to watch it badly! I am having a hard time not typing in “Leonard Cohen” when I go to You Tube, because I want to stay chronological. I also am having a hard time not reading all of the threads on this forum, but I want to wait and read them when I have caught up to them all.
Thank you again.... and sorry for the long post.
Vickie