Which is the most sensual Cohen's song
Sensuality
I was first drawn to LC's incredible music years ago when I heard "I'm Your Man" on a Chicago radio station. I listened to the station for weeks, hoping to hear it again because I missed the name of the artist. The next time it played, I caught it and bought the album. Since then, I've exposed others to his music - the old songs and the new - as often as possible.
"I'm Your Man" is a song of total devotion by a man to a woman. It's plea for acceptance on any terms transcends any obstacle and promises absolute intimacy.
It's also a glimpse into a poet's heart of hearts.
"I'm Your Man" is a song of total devotion by a man to a woman. It's plea for acceptance on any terms transcends any obstacle and promises absolute intimacy.
It's also a glimpse into a poet's heart of hearts.
Tom
I think it is a rather amusing catalog of his answer to Freud's question "What does woman want?" Also recalls to me Elvis' more impassioned but less sophsticated "Anyway You Want Me" ( found on Golden Hits, Complete 50's Masters.) I also think of it as a Don Juan's opening gambit. What other man promises to renovate his entire persona (or pretend to) just to gain the favor of a woman?
~ I've always seen it the way Tom has, Lightning; however, your last premise has merit and I may have been duped So you're dismissing submissiveness entirely? Odd, I know a lot of women that enjoy a bit of dominance, and have never ended up with anything in an oven.lightning wrote:Cohen was being ironic about male dominance not sensual when he wrote "Lie beside me baby that's an order." Few of us like to sleep with Nazis and those that do often wind up with their heads in the oven.
I love that line, however it was meant, Dance Me to the End is great too.
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John the Shorts
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Sensual Song
Though it has been already mentioned, I think Cohen's "Light as the Breeze" is his most sensual.
"So I knelt there at the delta
at the alpha, and the omega,
at the cradle to the river and the seas
And the blessings come from heaven
And for something like a second
I'm cured and my heart is at ease"
Now, I have heard, and I agree, that this is an eloquent description of oral sex. If this is the case, Leonard is lending high praise, even suggesting a theraputic, medicinal quality to the act and/or the resulting secretions. This is why the man still does so well with the ladies. If only we all felt this way, or at least could write like this. Way to go, Leonard!
-Mark
"So I knelt there at the delta
at the alpha, and the omega,
at the cradle to the river and the seas
And the blessings come from heaven
And for something like a second
I'm cured and my heart is at ease"
Now, I have heard, and I agree, that this is an eloquent description of oral sex. If this is the case, Leonard is lending high praise, even suggesting a theraputic, medicinal quality to the act and/or the resulting secretions. This is why the man still does so well with the ladies. If only we all felt this way, or at least could write like this. Way to go, Leonard!
-Mark
Sensual verses
As for dominance/submission, for every "Lie beside me baby, that's an order" there's an "I'd crawl to you baby and I'd fall at your feet / And I'd howl at your beauty like a dog in heat / etc.etc.etc. ..." to balance it.
In fact, if there's one thing I've heard Leonard most criticized for by women, it's been his tendency to adore & worship women (and their bodies) to the extent that he places them upon pedastals on which they really have no chance of movement or voices of their own. In my opinion, in fact, that's a valid criticism -- even though it does not detract from the poetic intensity or sensual beauty of his work, at least for me.
Most sensual verse? Well, technically it's borrowed, but even so--at least on purely lyric terms-- it's hard to beat:
"I'll dance with you in Vienna
I'll be wearing a river's disguise
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder
My mouth on the dew of your thighs..."
In general, though, I think that no one can sing or say the words "beauty" or "beautiful" quite as sensually as Leonard can. The very first time I saw him, back in 1970, he gazed into the eyes of a woman who asked for his autograph and murmured, "Ahhh... you're a beautiful one" -- and I thought that every woman within earshot was going to faint in ecstacy. I saw him again in Boston during his '88 tour, and --surprise!--he said virtually the same thing to a woman who was standing next to him, and the reaction --even among that roomful of feminist-honed, consciousness-raised Bostonians-- was also virtually the same.
In fact, if there's one thing I've heard Leonard most criticized for by women, it's been his tendency to adore & worship women (and their bodies) to the extent that he places them upon pedastals on which they really have no chance of movement or voices of their own. In my opinion, in fact, that's a valid criticism -- even though it does not detract from the poetic intensity or sensual beauty of his work, at least for me.
Most sensual verse? Well, technically it's borrowed, but even so--at least on purely lyric terms-- it's hard to beat:
"I'll dance with you in Vienna
I'll be wearing a river's disguise
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder
My mouth on the dew of your thighs..."
In general, though, I think that no one can sing or say the words "beauty" or "beautiful" quite as sensually as Leonard can. The very first time I saw him, back in 1970, he gazed into the eyes of a woman who asked for his autograph and murmured, "Ahhh... you're a beautiful one" -- and I thought that every woman within earshot was going to faint in ecstacy. I saw him again in Boston during his '88 tour, and --surprise!--he said virtually the same thing to a woman who was standing next to him, and the reaction --even among that roomful of feminist-honed, consciousness-raised Bostonians-- was also virtually the same.
Last edited by David on Sat Mar 29, 2003 3:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Nothing is said that is not sung."