Did anyone have opportunity to remember exactly or chronicle changed verses in the second refrain of "Bird on the Wire"? It was something about longing - the meaning was: "The longing is for long to you") Leonard Cohen used these words on the recent concerts.
And more difficult task - "The Partisan" and two new French verses: I have changed my name so often,
I've lost my wife and children
................... (Something like "You who know what does it mean..." in French)
...................
Maybe there's something more to notice? Please, You lucky possessors of tickets to future shows, keep Your ears open wider than me!
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
Since the French words are the original words and not Leonard's, I doubt he would change any of them. Perhaps they are just more verses that he used to sing around the camp-fire as a child.
“If you do have love it's a kind of wound, and if you don't have it it's worse.” - Leonard, July 1988
Thank You, Hydriot. But I don't mean exactly "changing French words". I mean that the words:
"But I've many friends
And some of them are with me"
on Warsaw concert were replaced by some French lyrics.
The question is: What these new lyrics are exactly and does our Poet use them during the other performances?
The same question I have about the second refrain of "Bird on the/a Wire".
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
As for The Partisan, he did sing it already like this in 1988, and maybe even earlier. In midst of English translation, there was something like "[after those friends & family he mentions] mon passage". But I always thought he simply retunred pieces from the original. Also, he usually changed the translation (rather poor) to original meanings (i.e. Germans instead of "soldiers" and some other words. But as I say, that was earlier, I didn't hear the song o this tour.
The English translation was always a very loose poetic version of the original, sometimes even expressing the exact opposite of the original (I am thinking of the doleful "The frontiers are my prison", quite the opposite of the triumphant "J'ai la France entiere"). Also, it always struck me as very odd that Leonard chose to change the sex of the person giving shelter. I presumed this was because the extra syllable in 'woman' fitted the metre better ... but he could have sung 'farmer' instead ('grenier' can also mean 'granary').
“If you do have love it's a kind of wound, and if you don't have it it's worse.” - Leonard, July 1988
Well, when already the non-English adaptations are mentioned, in Croatian (two versions), Arsen Dedic sings "the old woman", while Dzoni Stulic (of the Azra band fame), sings "a young girl in the garden"... (following his own usual way of metaphors... and it does fit the song).
I think you will have to install the "Download manager" from their website (there's a Download now button on the right somewhere). I've never used this before, let me know if it doesn't work...
Maarten
2008 Manchester | Bruges | Amsterdam | London | 2x Brussels | Rotterdam |2x London 2009 New York | Cologne | Antwerp | Venice | Colmar | Barcelona | Las Vegas | San José 2010 Salzburg | 2x Sligo | Helsinki | 3x Ghent | Lille | 2x Las Vegas 2012 5x Ghent | 2x A'dam | Helsinki | Dublin | Verona | 3x Paris | Lisboa 2013 Paris | Antwerp | Oberhausen | Brussels | Pula | Rotterdam | Amsterdam | 2x Wellington | Auckland
