Question about "First We Take Manhattan" and Cohen reference to a poem by Irving Layton

General discussion about Leonard Cohen's songs and albums
Post Reply
User avatar
lschwart
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2016 4:48 am
Location: Richmond, VA

Question about "First We Take Manhattan" and Cohen reference to a poem by Irving Layton

Post by lschwart »

The following remark (usually credited to a "backstage interview"--maybe in 1988?) is often quoted in discussions of "First We Take Manhattan:"

"I’m not sure of what it [that is, the song] means right now because I had this long voyage from Chicago. I think it means exactly what it says. It is a terrorist song. I think it's a response to terrorism. There's something about terrorism that I've always admired. The fact that there are no alibis or no compromises. That position is always very attractive. I don't like it when it's manifested on the physical plane - I don't really enjoy the terrorist activities – but Psychic Terrorism. I remember there was a great poem by Irving Layton that I once read, I'll give you a paraphrase of it. It was 'well, you guys blow up an occasional airline and kill a few children here and there', he says. 'But our terrorists, Jesus, Freud, Marx, Einstein. The whole world is still quaking...'"

I've been reading through Layton's work trying to find the poem that Cohen is paraphrasing here, but I haven't been able to find it just yet. I'll continue to look, but I was hoping someone out there might know and save me some time!

If anyone knows exactly when the interview took place and if there is a print or audio copy available of the whole thing, that would also be very helpful.

Thanks in advance!!

Louis
Louis Schwartz

"The sea so deep and blind/ The sun, the wild regret/ The club, the wheel, the mind,/ O love, aren't you tired yet?" Leonard Cohen, "The Faith."

https://english.richmond.edu/faculty/lschwart/

https://www.facebook.com/mysonthedoctorRVA/

https://www.youtube.com/user/mysonthedr
User avatar
B4real
Posts: 7226
Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2009 4:49 am
Location: Q'ld, Australia

Re: Question about "First We Take Manhattan" and Cohen reference to a poem by Irving Layton

Post by B4real »

Firstly, welcome to the forum, Louis!

And secondly, the quote above with a few words different, is at the beginning of this audio at Toronto 11.09.88 - pt 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AyUADwypc4. If you want to listen to the first part of this interview here it is - pt 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT4P-VFnirE

I've had a look through my book of Collected Poems by Irving Layton https://www.leonardcohenforum.com/viewt ... ng#p366116 and I can't see the poem you're looking for. My book has 385 poems. I hope you manage to find it eventually.
It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to B4real ~ me
Attitude is a self-fulfilling prophecy ~ me ...... The magic of art is the truth of its lies ~ me ...... Only left-handers are in their right mind!
User avatar
lschwart
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2016 4:48 am
Location: Richmond, VA

Re: Question about "First We Take Manhattan" and Cohen reference to a poem by Irving Layton

Post by lschwart »

Thank you so much for those links. Very helpful!

And thanks, also, for having a go at your Collected Poems. I've made my way through a couple of different "selected" editions, and now I'm making my way through the individual collections of poems that Layton published from 1967 onward. I started with For My Brother Jesus, since that seemed like the right book, thematically, for this sort of thing. But it's not in that collection, so I figured I'd go back and search through the late 60s and early 70s stuff. Cohen's paraphrase sounds like it comes from something written around the early 70s, but who knows? Cohen's paraphrase might be wayward or he might be remembering something Layton said in conversation or in an essay.

Again, thank you!

Louis
Louis Schwartz

"The sea so deep and blind/ The sun, the wild regret/ The club, the wheel, the mind,/ O love, aren't you tired yet?" Leonard Cohen, "The Faith."

https://english.richmond.edu/faculty/lschwart/

https://www.facebook.com/mysonthedoctorRVA/

https://www.youtube.com/user/mysonthedr
User avatar
B4real
Posts: 7226
Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2009 4:49 am
Location: Q'ld, Australia

Re: Question about "First We Take Manhattan" and Cohen reference to a poem by Irving Layton

Post by B4real »

Glad to help in some small way :D
It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to B4real ~ me
Attitude is a self-fulfilling prophecy ~ me ...... The magic of art is the truth of its lies ~ me ...... Only left-handers are in their right mind!
User avatar
lschwart
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2016 4:48 am
Location: Richmond, VA

Re: Question about "First We Take Manhattan" and Cohen reference to a poem by Irving Layton

Post by lschwart »

In case you're still interested, I finally found the poem that Cohen refers to (and actually paraphrases in interestingly inaccurate ways). It's called “Terrorists,” and it was published by Layton in his collection, The Pole-Vaulter (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1974), p. 37:

Insulted, forsaken exiles
harried, harassed, shat on
learning
Justice is heard only
when it speaks through the mouth
of a cannon

learning
Right lies waiting
To fly out of a gun barrel

learning weakness is the one crime
history never pardons or condones

Uselessly you bruise yourselves, squirming
against civilization’s whipping post;
Black September wolfcubs
terrify only themselves

The Jewish terrorists, ah:
Maimonides, Spinoza, Freud,
Marx

The whole world is still quaking

I'm not quite sure what to make of the ways in which Cohen misremembers the original lines in his off-hand paraphrase. He drops Maimonides and Spinoza in favor of Jesus and Einstein, and he frames the comparison in Layton's last three stanzas differently, dropping the specificity of "Black September wolf-cubs" for the more general and colloquial, "you guys." He echoes Layton's dismissiveness, but he refers to the violence done by "you guys" to others, rather than the violence they do to themselves. He also replaces Layton's specific "Jewish terrorists" with the more general "our terrorists," although the Jewishness of "our" is still strongly implied by the list of four names--even if he inclusion of Jesus gestures more widely. In any case, it's interesting that the poem stuck in his mind some 14 years after he probably first read it.

Louis
Louis Schwartz

"The sea so deep and blind/ The sun, the wild regret/ The club, the wheel, the mind,/ O love, aren't you tired yet?" Leonard Cohen, "The Faith."

https://english.richmond.edu/faculty/lschwart/

https://www.facebook.com/mysonthedoctorRVA/

https://www.youtube.com/user/mysonthedr
ralphlane
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Jan 03, 2022 12:00 am

Re: Question about "First We Take Manhattan" and Cohen reference to a poem by Irving Layton

Post by ralphlane »

Thank you so much Ischwart for your clarification, and especially for your posting of Irving Layton's original poem. I too had been hunting for it ever since seeing Leonard Cohen's reference to it in his Wikipedia entry. He does indeed "remember" it very inaccurately, and as somebody else said, the interview with Cohen may have been an impromptu backstage affair. Personally I allow Cohen the licence of what we used to call "artistic temperament". He remembers it as he remembers it! I like his idea of the 4 Jewish terrorists of the mind who still have humanity quaking! I mean, Einstein even has us doubting whether existence exists; doesn't he? BummER!

Ralph Lane :)
User avatar
lschwart
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2016 4:48 am
Location: Richmond, VA

Re: Question about "First We Take Manhattan" and Cohen reference to a poem by Irving Layton

Post by lschwart »

You're very welcome!

Louis
Louis Schwartz

"The sea so deep and blind/ The sun, the wild regret/ The club, the wheel, the mind,/ O love, aren't you tired yet?" Leonard Cohen, "The Faith."

https://english.richmond.edu/faculty/lschwart/

https://www.facebook.com/mysonthedoctorRVA/

https://www.youtube.com/user/mysonthedr
ralphlane
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Jan 03, 2022 12:00 am

Re: Question about "First We Take Manhattan" and Cohen reference to a poem by Irving Layton

Post by ralphlane »

B4real wrote: Fri Jul 26, 2019 4:22 am Firstly, welcome to the forum, Louis!

And secondly, the quote above with a few words different, is at the beginning of this audio at Toronto 11.09.88 - pt 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AyUADwypc4. If you want to listen to the first part of this interview here it is - pt 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT4P-VFnirE

I've had a look through my book of Collected Poems by Irving Layton https://www.leonardcohenforum.com/viewt ... ng#p366116 and I can't see the poem you're looking for. My book has 385 poems. I hope you manage to find it eventually.
I have just listened to the starts of the two parts of the Toronto interview on Youtube. At the beginning of the second part Leonard Cohen does indeed paraphrase the Irving Layton poem and he supplies his own quartet of intellectual terrorists: Jesus Christ, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstien.

I look forward to hearing the whole interview soon. Joy! Thank you B4real!
Post Reply

Return to “Leonard Cohen's music”