leonardcohenforum.com

Boogie Street:

And O my love, I still recall
The pleasures that we knew;
The rivers and the waterfall,
Wherein I bathed with you.
Bewildered by your beauty there,
I’d kneel to dry your feet.
By such instructions you prepare
A man for Boogie Street

Please forgive me as I do appreciate that we all have our own opinions but with lyrics such as these, I just cannot imagine this not touching someones heart straight through

QueenofSolitude wrote:

Please forgive me as I do appreciate that we all have our own opinions but with lyrics such as these, I just cannot imagine this not touching someones heart straight through

You're right about the lyrics. When I listen carefully to the lyrics of almost any song by Leonard, I'm mesmerized almost immediately. However, on first listening to some of his songs, the combination of music and words present a "disharmony" that is only (for me) overcome by repeated listenings. But that's just me.

Lili

QueenOfSolitude, that's actually my favorite part of the song and the part that made me love it the way I do now. But the first time I heard it, the intro sucked so totally in my ears that I didn't like it and therefore didn't care much for the song anyway. I'm with Lili on this, it's not just the lyrics, it's the music, too.

Lilifyre wrote: Dress Rehearsal Rag

Yeah, the description of a suicide can't be too good for a song, but, my, I love Dress Rehearsal Rag. When my mood is miserable this song describes it so cruelly that my bitterness is soon wiped off. Like an alarm sound screaming "wake up"! Of course that's not what it says, but that's the effect it has on me.

Lilifyre wrote:I haven't come close to listening to ALL of Leonard's songs

Why not? What's the holdup? No offence (please, I'm just surprised), but I find it remarkable that there are forum members who haven't listened to all of Leonard's songs and albums! I guess I'm just so different: when I first discovered Leonard 20 years ago, I had to hear everything he ever recorded, and as quickly as possible!

Oh well, I guess you are in the fun position of being able to discover some of his songs for the first time, which is cool. Enjoy! Hopefully you won't have any more "don't like"s!

Lilifyre wrote:I haven't come close to listening to ALL of Leonard's songs and of the ones I've heard, there are only a few that I'm not particularly fond of. I guess my list would be:
The Stranger Song
Avalanche
Dress Rehearsal Rag
Jazz Police
Iodine

That's about it. Of course, that list is subject to change. Sometimes a song grows on me and I end up liking it after initially being turned off by it. Such is the case for Boogie Street. I really didn't like it the first dozen or so times I heard it. While it's not one of my favorites, I no longer hate it.

Lili

first time I heard Stranger Song and Avalanche I was immediately entranced. I was more so entranced with Stranger Song because it is so mysterious, at least to me. The song never ceases to force me to ask "what exactly is he getting at here?" It's a lovely experience every time I listen to it. It may be challenging intellectually, but emotionally it completely makes sense

LisaLCFan wrote: I find it remarkable that there are forum members who haven't listened to all of Leonard's songs and albums!

It's because you don't need to listen everything by Leonard to get the Cohenphilic Personality Disorder and in case you haven't read about it, visiting the LC forum 20 or more times weekly or having 500 or more posted items is one of the symptoms.. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=20032

And now, seriously, when I joined the forum I hadn't heard all of the albums and songs either, that's why I hadn't mentioned "Always" right from the beginning in this thread. For me, listening to new music is a whole ceremony and I listen to new music when I truly need it. I mean, I got Live Songs about a month ago (I think it's been a month or more) and after I listened to it once, I just left it on the shelf and kept listening to all the other LC music I've got. Last week I started getting bored of the same and the same songs again and then reached for it and fell in love with it. Its time just had to come for me.

LisaLCFan wrote:

Why not? What's the holdup? No offence (please, I'm just surprised), but I find it remarkable that there are forum members who haven't listened to all of Leonard's songs and albums! I guess I'm just so different: when I first discovered Leonard 20 years ago, I had to hear everything he ever recorded, and as quickly as possible!

I haven't heard all his songs for a couple of reasons. First of all, even tho I have listened to this type of music since the 60s, I really didn't discover LC until very recently....within the last year or so. I don't know why I never paid attention to his music before. I can remember hearing Suzanne and Marianne when I was younger but I don't remember hearing THE MAN singing them. So I haven't had the time to listen to all his music at this point.

The second reason is I don't buy albums. I'm on a rather tight budget and, while YouTube has a wide selection of Leonard's songs to listen to for free, they don't have ALL his songs. I have purchased the songs I have from iTunes individually. I can listen to individual songs on YouTube and then purchase just that one song for 99 cents rather than pay $15.00 or more for an album that may have tracks I don't like or, worse, may duplicate songs that I already have. True, I do have multiple versions of some songs such as "Lover lover lover" and "Hallelujah" because I like the different accompaniments or the way the song has evolved over time. But that doesn't mean I want multiple copies of every song.

Back to my first reason, that I haven't been listening to Leonard all that long when I have loved this type of music all my adult life, there is a saying that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Leonard Cohen is definitely my teacher. His music and poetry appeared in my life when I needed it. I had been in a spiritual wasteland for several years. His music awakened me and lead me back to a path I thought I had lost. When the time is right for his songs to touch my soul, it will happen.

Lili

I never bought albums either, I just downloaded everything, 'till I decided that I just wanted to have the original CDs. Dunno why, I guess I started loving music in the level of madness and I wanted to spend money on it. Of course my mother's tight budget is preventing me from having them all of them here and now, so I'm just waiting patiently for the next pay day...

Listening music on YouTube requires sitting on the computer and I can't be on the computer everytime I want to listen to Leonard, because there wouldn't be any time left to go to school, sleep, eat, get out of house, see people etc...
Plus, you can't sleep with Leonard's music, can you? I can and I do it pretty often and it rocks, because the songs are part of my dreams..

Stamatina wrote:

Listening music on YouTube requires sitting on the computer and I can't be on the computer everytime I want to listen to Leonard, because there wouldn't be any time left to go to school, sleep, eat, get out of house, see people etc...
Plus, you can't sleep with Leonard's music, can you? I can and I do it pretty often and it rocks, because the songs are part of my dreams..

LOL....I DO sit on my computer most of the day listening to Leonard As for sleeping with his music, that's why I got an iPod. I've noticed lately that even when I don't have his music playing in my ears all night long, I still frequently wake up with one of his songs running thru my head.

Lili

Dear Lilli and Stamatina,

I wake up with a Leonard song in my head every morning, isn't it wonderful? what a way to wake up, with a beautiful tune leading me out of bed and ready to start the day. I also have fully discovered Leonard only when I saw him at Radio City last May. I was addicted to Ten New Songs for years but for some reason didn't get other music After the concert, I exploded . I had to have everything, I had to know every word, every poem, every book. The drug overtook me uncontrollably. When I saw him again at the Garden in October, I was already a worshipping disciple The time in my life came for me to absorb his work fully.

I am now getting his records on Ebay, they are still cheap and I just love the organic nature of a record. I'm gathering all his books in vintage editions and as I read the poems and novels, more layers of this man unfold and my obsession deepens. I'm really looking forward to seeing his art exhibit in Montreal in February.

Thank you ladies for sharing in these feelings. I just love this forum

Stamatina wrote: It's because you don't need to listen everything by Leonard to get the Cohenphilic Personality Disorder and in case you haven't read about it, visiting the LC forum 20 or more times weekly or having 500 or more posted items is one of the symptoms.. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=20032

Yes, I have read this! It's very funny! (And, very true!). I don't have ALL of the symptoms, but I defnitely qualify as someone with CPD, there's no doubt about that!

Haha, me too!

For some months now I have resisted responding to this thread. You see I love every Leonard Cohen song.
I say that all his songs are equal, except some are more equal than others.

Leonard himself said “If I knew where all the good songs came from I’d go there more often”.
The ones I think that are not quite so equal are:

Jazz Police
Dear Heather
Queen Victoria
Leaving Greensleeves
The Captain
Hunter’s Lullaby
and all of the CD Death Of A Ladies Man (except Memories and the title track)

I believe the first four were done “tongue in cheek” with a wry sense of humour. A perfect example of this is in this video on you tube with Leonard singing a witty ditty to his friend Irving Layton.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qXI6Yp21fk

B4real wrote:I believe the first four were done “tongue in cheek” with a wry sense of humour. A perfect example of this is in this video on you tube with Leonard singing a witty ditty to his friend Irving Layton.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qXI6Yp21fk

That is hilarious! And Leonard's singing it with such gusto! Thanks for a good laugh!

The whole Death of a Ladies' Man, simply because I don't like that kind of bombastic music, I hardly recognised LC's voice.
And I neither like Jazz Police, The Lost Canadian and Never Any Good.