Well...I certainly learned a few things today. However, should I wander into a Hebrew restaurant, I'll stick to the traditional 'ice-cream'. People on the web can get pretty cute sometimes, and their victims wind up looking plain crazy.
I have to admit to not reading the entire thread (bad habits never die, they just continue in a different form). However, I thought your remarks to be spot on. If It Be Your Will is certainly a good example, and there are many, many more. Is this what brought you to Leonard? How you became interested in his work, or just an observation? Were you a fan of his poetry first, or music. I'm so full of ... questions today (that's because I should buy myself some time and read the thread). Thanks very much for responding. I will read the thread, and I will post anything I find to be pertinent, inane, or just plain silly. You can bet on it. Thanks again for your response.
Linda.
~ The smell of perfume in the air, bits of beauty everywhere ~ Leonard Cohen.
It's really hard to see what precisely brought me to Leonard, although the route was most assuredly through Judy Collins, as it was for many of us back in those days. I soaked in his songs from "In My Life," "Wildflowers," and "Who Knows Where the Time Goes," and somewhere during my early 20s bought "Songs of Leonard Cohen" and "Songs from a Room." I have to admit that at first, his singing seemed an acquired taste, but as I began to listen more closely I began to feel a sensibility that was strikingly different than his interpretors. Today, although I still enjoy many of the Collins covers, I think she tends to prettify the songs which dilutes the multi-dimensionality of both the material and Leonard's interpretations.
But beyond the melodic and lyrical beauty was his transcendent grasp of mystery in connection with feminine beauty, a deep longing and striving for spiritual connection that spoke to me in ways I'm sure I didn't completely fathom at the time. And I think that it's that sense of longing, the desire for completion through grappling with that mystery that began to penetrate the boundaries of "my innermost door." Leonard just "got it" in ways that nobody else could or wished to.
As time moved on, my interest in his music went on hold, until the mid-'90s when I began a furious quest to pick up every damned cd I could find. And to my delight, as we both were aging (I'm 16 years his junior), he was speaking to parts of my experience almost beyond my ability to articulate. And that's my deep attraction to this material, the depth of understanding, the compassion, and his willingness to grow, change, grapple, and do it ever so publicly through his work which makes him a bit of an advance scout on the spiritual path. His longings have been similar to mine, and our stumbles not entirely dissimilar.
Earlier this year, I picked up "Book of Longing," which was my first LC book of poetry - read it from cover to cover (against his recommendation I was later to discover, but it was the only way I could think of to track the poems I had and hadn't read). I loved the range, rage, vision, quirkiness, and depth, and committed the first one to memory ("I can't make the hills.......). Then, shortly after I purchased the collection, I read about Spoleto in the local paper, so my wife and I got ourselves down to Charleston, SC for the American premier - which was everything I could have hoped for. But that's a post for another day.
Best,
Fred
"When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them.”
Welcome to the Forum . I, too, at first 'wanted to make' Glida be Gilda and thought of Radner, thinking you may have made a typo in your screen name ... and kept trying to force my mind's voice say Glida, when it desperately kept wanting to say Gilda.
Anyway, just stopping by to say that this is a boy-you-got-that-right:
. . . but as I began to listen more closely I began to feel a sensibility that was strikingly different than his interpretors.
But beyond the melodic and lyrical beauty was his transcendent grasp of mystery in connection with feminine beauty, a deep longing and striving for spiritual connection that spoke to me . . . And I think that it's that sense of longing, the desire for completion through grappling with that mystery that began to penetrate the boundaries of "my innermost door." Leonard just "got it" in ways that nobody else could or wished to.
I feel there's a really striking difference between Leonard and the rest in these ways; whether they're artists doing covers or simply other artists writing and singing their own songs.
I enjoyed reading how you came to Leonard and your comments on Book of Longing. Long past due now, goodnight. I haven't been able to stop checking for more comments on the Goodall Gallery event.
~ Lizzy
"Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken." ~ Oscar Wilde
Yes, I'm still alive, and around. However, I doubt I'll be posting tonight. This is indeed a very interesting thread, with so many interpretations. Yes, the "L" word. A topic in itself. In terms of Leonard's music, when it comes to the "L" word, I always think of "You Have Loved Enough", then there's that little go 'round with Sharon and Leonard in "By the Rivers Dark" - "I have been delivered". I don't think Tom yet believes me on that one.
I've said it so many times, and I'll say it again, there is something for all in Leonard's work - and it's not always the same thing twice. Well, I still haven't finished reading all this - but I shall, and see somebody (I hope) tomorrow.
Adios,
Linda.
~ The smell of perfume in the air, bits of beauty everywhere ~ Leonard Cohen.
~
. I, too, at first 'wanted to make' Glida be Gilda and thought of Radner, thinking you may have made a typo in your screen name 
... and kept trying to force my mind's voice say Glida, when it desperately kept wanting to say Gilda.