Happy Birthday, Leonard Cohen. Please live on.

• I'm Your Man - The Cohen tribute
• Clip form the tribute - Tower Of Song
• Famous Blue Raincoat - Live 2008
• Leonard Cohen Files
• Martha Wainwright's cover of The Traitor
• Rufus Wainwight's cover of Chelsea Hotel

So long, Marianne

Hydra, Greece

We met when we were almost young
deep in the green lilac park.
You held on to me like I was a crucifix,
as we went kneeling through the dark.

For now I need your hidden love.
I'm cold as a new razor blade.
You left when I told you I was curious,
I never said that I was brave

I came across this interview with Marianne Ihlen, Leonard Cohen's muse in Hydra in the sixties. I've always loved the elusive lyrics of So Long Marianne which I guess is the most famous, most often sung Cohen song among camp-fire troubadors and buskers and such. Maybe I'll do Suzanne next week.

• So long Marianne - Leonard Cohen
  
• A 2005 interview with Marianne
  

Do not say the moment was imagined

By Shotgun Serenade

Even though she sleeps upon your satin;
Even though she wakes you with a kiss.
Do not say the moment was imagined;
Do not stoop to strategies like this.

As someone long prepared for this to happen,
Go firmly to the window. Drink it in.
Exquisite music. Alexandra laughing.
Your firm commitments tangible again.

As someone long prepared for the occasion;
In full command of every plan you wrecked –
Do not choose a coward’s explanation
That hides behind the cause and the effect.

And you who had the honor of her evening,
And by the honor had your own restored
–Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving;
Alexandra leaving with her lord.

- Leonard Cohen
(One of his most beautiful; an adaptation of a Lorca poem)

• Alexandra Leaving - Leonard Cohen
• Selah - Lauren Hill

Part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time

If we look closely, it seems there may be fragments of Leonard Cohen lingering in Joni Mitchell's music. I read about it here. Who else could she be referring to in The Gallery?

Lady, please love me now,
I am dead, I am a saint, turn down your bed
I have no heart, that’s what you said
You said, I can be cruel
But let me be gentle with you

Maybe even A Case of You (my favourite)

Just before our love got lost you said
"I am as constant as a northern star"
And I said "constant in the darkness, where's that at?"
...
Oh I could drink a case of you
And I would still be on my feet

I thought I would also post this video I found of Joni on the Johnny Cash show singing
I Still Miss Someone

because tomorrow you may have become pure light

by Masha

"Love generally but do not commit yourself to a particular love. You will become
known as sympathetic friend and faithful lover because you never really permit
these roles to seize your heart, you can practice and perfect them. But the
heart is guarded, kept free and untarnished by any simple human affiliation so
that it will reflect in glorious accuracy all the charts of the stars which the
clouds one day will part to reveal. The important thing is not to approach
anyone too close because tomorrow you may have become pure light."
-Leonard Cohen

• New Age - Tori Amos (A Velver Underground cover)
• When the Day is Short - Martha Wainwright

how beautiful it is to be loved by a madwoman

by Deforma

O I will tell him to love you carefully;
to honour you with shells and coloured bottles;
to keep from your face the falling sand
and from your human arm the time-charred beetle;

to teach you new stories about lightning and
let you run sometimes barefoot on the shore.
And when the needle grins bloodlessly in his cheek
he will come to know how beautiful it is
to be loved by a madwoman.

- from Song of Patience by Leonard Cohen: Let us Compare Mythologies

• I Left a Woman Waiting - Leonard Cohen
• Bleeding All Over You - Martha Wainwright

For your morbid delectation...

By Gerald Fantone

"That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment." - Dorothy Parker

• Die Young, Stay Pretty - Blondie
• Who by Fire - Leonard Cohen (A live version)
• Henry Lee - Nick Cave and PJ Harvey
• Grace - Jeff Buckley

I remember you well at the Chelsea Hotel

And when you say you love me,
I don't want to think you really mean New York City
And all the fun we have in it

- from Chelsea Walls, a film by Ethan Hawke

A film I don't recommend and a setting I'm enamored with

• Chelsea Hotel No. 2 by Leonard Cohen
• A live cover by Martha Wainwright
  

Poetry is a verdict

"Lever les Yeux"

"Poetry is a verdict not an occupation...Once the fire celebrated Light, the
dirst Humility, the blood Sacrifice...Once, for a while, he seemed to serve
something other than himself. Those were the only poems he ever wrote. They
were for Shell. He wanted to give her back her body."

- from The Favourite Game by Leonard Cohen

• Listen: Famous Blue Raincoat by Leonard Cohen
  

Secret

designed by Luna

In my Secret Life - Leonard Cohen
A cover - by Katie Melua

When the day is short
And the nights are long
It's a different world
Where the rules are wrong

When the Day is Short - Martha Wainwright

Alone with my radio

His silence in pain. I have come through the fire of family and love. I smoke with my darling, I sleep with my friend. We talk of the poor men, broken and fled. Alone with my radio I lift up my hands. Welcome to you who read me today. Welcome to you who put my heart down. Welcome to you, darling and friend, who miss me forever in your trip to the end.

- Leonard Cohen

Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye

Why don't I begin with Leonard Cohen, the troubadour of my heart since he is number one for me in any category of life. It was divine intervention that led me to the acquisition of concert tickets for his world tour stop in Toronto. I won't go into the details but it had to do with my clairvoyance and wicked twist of luck. I had found out about the tour two days after I was musing about how wonderful it would be if Leonard did another tour and one day before the tickets went on sale partially. I had nearly the worst seats in the house as it was all I could afford but I was euphoric the entire time. Leonard was a tiny charming little dancing speck and I was a overjoyed crazy lady. The only mildly disappointing aspect was his song line-up. There was too much of the later stuff and nearly nothing from New Skin For the Old Ceremony or Death of a Ladies’ Man (my two favourite albums of his). He didn’t even do Chelsea Hotel 2. The only classics performed were Suzanne, Bird on a Wire and Hallelujah. Nevertheless, it was breathtaking and I hope to God he may do it again before he says goodbye for good.

• http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/tour2008-1.html



• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-brh4fpsMA&feature=related