leonardcohenforum.com

schubert wrote:What a fascinating topic,Ive just been reading through the posts and all of them stand out.
Two Id like to add.
Ah they'll never,they'll never, ever reach the moon,
at least not the one that we're after,
it's floating broken on the open sea,look out there my friends,
and it carries no survivors.

The man is quite simply a genius with words,and as for depressing,never found him that.Sad sometimes but mostly
uplifing.I can lift my mood instantly by putting on the Future loud,very loud,amazing song.

Love these lines you chose. There is, I think, nothing depressing about addressing issues that provoke strong emotions such as longing, sorrow and fear. Leonard Cohen's songs allow us to feel the emotions. Depression, seems to appear when one covers these issues up and hides ones emotions.

"Hallelujah"

"It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah"

Now in 12-step fellowships the 4th step is "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves".
The 5th step is "Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs".

The promise of the 5th step is all follows "Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we are on the Broad Highway, walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe". (Alcoholics Anonymous)

These lines get me everytime when I hear them and think of all the men and women who lived life with difficulties whether it be drugs, emotions, alcohol, ect. They looked for answers to their difficulties in seeking God through the 12 steps and found a release from them and have entered into a new freedom of living with a oneness of thier creator! Hence~'The baffled king composing Hallelujah'

I'm with you Kwills:

"take this longing from my tongue"

Evie B

[edit] (it might just as well hail in Montreal)

She died without a whisper......

I have been to lazy to read through the whole thread, so they may have been presented already, but - for sheer wit, insight and brevity in expressing a complex idea, as well as being very useful to repel the hideous myth that Cohen isn't funny -

I fought against the bottle
But I had to do it drunk.

David

David,

Personally I have never heard that Leonard isn't funny, nor of a hideous myth about it. Anyone who has been fan/admirer call them/us what you will, even for a short while, will know that, surely? For as long as I can remember, he has had a smile and a quip to suit most occasions but, OK early on he was rather serious about life but he still had a humorous quote to hand most times.

Perhaps this refers back more to the so called "slit your wrists" years

I like your choice, it always amuses me as well.

[edit] Nonagon

Personally I have never heard that Leonard isn't funny, nor of a hideous myth about it

Of course not among the cognoscenti, but, among the shockingly few non-devotees who are in some way aware of Cohen's songs, this is a prevailing attitude.

If I knew of an emoticon that denoted amused solidarity, I would insert it here.

Peace.

David

She tempts him with a clarinet
She waves a nazi dagger!

because of course that's the sort of thing the wicked pawnshop owner's lovely daughter would have lying around.

Eddie Willers wrote:She tempts him with a clarinet
She waves a nazi dagger!

because of course that's the sort of thing the wicked pawnshop owner's lovely daughter would have lying around.

Oh yes!!!

When I was a teenager I used to shout this at the top of my voice as I sang along....... (actually I still do!)

Great choice!

Ok I know I'm years late replying here but have being thinking a lot about compiling a list of my favourite Cohen lyrics. Here are a few:

"If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn, they will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem"

"I'm standing on a ledge and your fine spider web is fastening my ankle to a stone"

"It's time that we began to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again"

"It's just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea"

"I don’t trust my inner feelings inner feelings come and go"

"Love's the only engine of survival"

"Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in"

"I did my best, it wasn't much, I couldn't feel, so I learned to touch, I've told the truth, I didn't come this way to fool you"

"Even tough it all went wrong, I'll stand right here before the Lord of Song, with nothing on my lips but Hallelujah"

"If it be your will, that I speak no more, and my voice be still, as it was before, I will speak no more, I shall abide until I am spoken for, if it be your will"

And of course my signature line here:

"Like you would do for one you love"

Has gotta be ' Leonard's a lazy bastard in a suit' I just love his humour..

So many, but a very short one I like to image is

A garland of freshly cut tears.

"I needed so much to have nothing to touch...

I've always been greedy that way..."