Leonard Cohen - can you just imagine how much tickets will be for this? (2 Viewers)

[Pantone247]

ah yeah different strokes for different folks

and I get the whole "muzak" idea to an extent, First We Take Manhatten springs to mind and it works... but when 10 songs came out, it just felt tired...

If I put on my wanky cultural commentator hat for a moment you could argue that society is so knowing, or 'meta' if you will, that the juxtaposition just doesn't really shock like it should... Pulp do serious social crtique over Euro-pop disco, Oasis's biggest song is dwarfed (at the time) by the Mike Flowers lounge cover even Dan Le Sac ripping on popular culture over a pretty generic "electro clash" backing track... it's just the norm now, which why something like Johnny Cash's American Recording, or maybe Devandra Banhart and co's freak folk, sounds so fresh, no gags, no winks, just the songs mam... 10 songs, when it came out, just sounded really weak and a bit like it was sidestepping it's own potential

I remember when the last live album came out, seeing it one release sheets, only there nothing about it being an old record, so I thought it was his comeback record was called 'Field Commander Cohen' and it was like "aw fuck yeah! Lenny's come back to kick everyones ass!"

*sigh*

 

[nlgbbbblth]

ziiiiing a ling a ling

i'll try find me a best of.

i hope he uses a microkorg.

try and find this

covers the first four LPs.
sounds great on vinyl. The CD is a nice flat transfer.

failing that, this is more comprehensive - covers everything up to Ten New Songs [his second most recent album]. Drawback of this comp is that has nothing from Death Of A Ladies Man [album number five]

 

[Pantone247]

try and find this

so deadly

 

[JohnnyRaz]

Wow. Well it has been 20 years since the last gig here.
He hasn't really made a bad album although Death Of A Ladies Man and Recent Songs are my favourites.

man, death of a laidies man is the only album for me that the production renders unlistenable. Ive only listened to it 3-4 times since I bought it 6 years ago. songs of love and hate all the way!

 

[nlgbbbblth]

man, death of a laidies man is the only album for me that the production renders unlistenable. Ive only listened to it 3-4 times since I bought it 6 years ago. songs of love and hate all the way!

would rank 'em

1 Recent Songs
2 Death Of A Ladies Man
3 Songs Of Love And Hate

the Live Songs album is cool too.

 

[Pantone247]

 

[therealjohnny]

try and find this

covers the first four LPs.
sounds great on vinyl. The CD is a nice flat transfer.

I got this for a fiver the other day in Liffey Valley

 

[egg_]

man, death of a laidies man is the only album for me that the production renders unlistenable.

Shit
I'm just back from the shop after buying this. Now let me see ...

(his old greatest hits is the most amazing "greatest hits" album ever)

 

[Jim Daniels]

ONE OF US CANNOT BE WRONG
Leonard Cohen

I lit a thin green candle, to make you jealous of me.
But the room just filled up with mosquitoes,
they heard that my body was free.
Then I took the dust of a long sleepless night
and I put it in your little shoe.
And then I confess that I tortured the dress
that you wore for the world to look through.


I showed my heart to the doctor: he said I just have to quit.
Then he wrote himself a prescription,
and your name was mentioned in it
Then he locked himself in a library shelf
with the details of our honeymoon,
and I hear from the nurse that he's gotten much worse
and his practice is all in a ruin.

I heard of a saint who had loved you,
so I studied all night in his school.
He taught that the duty of lovers
is to tarnish the golden rule.
And just when I was sure that his teachings were pure
he drowned himself in the pool.
His body is gone but back here on the lawn
his spirit continues to drool.

An Eskimo showed me a movie
he'd recently taken of you:
the poor man could hardly stop shivering,
his lips and his fingers were blue.
I suppose that he froze when the wind took your clothes
and I guess he just never got warm.
But you stand there so nice, in your blizzard of ice,
oh please let me come into the storm.

 

[Jim Daniels]

would rank 'em

1 Recent Songs
2 Death Of A Ladies Man
3 Songs Of Love And Hate

the Live Songs album is cool too.

Recent Songs is great. I particularly like "The Ballad of the Absent Mare".

Songs From A Room is great as well. Lovely warm production to it.

I'd love to see an autobiog like Chronicles

 

[snakybus]

someone post that picture of lenny in his tight shorts for a laugh

 

[egg_]

I'd love to see an autobiog like Chronicles

Same here, that'd be amazing. Same for Tom Waits

 

[egg_]

Update on "Death of a Ladies Man"
Jeepers. Oul Phil Spector just would not be deterred from doing his Thing, would he?

I think Len thinks his battle is done when he's written the song, and doesn't give a flying fuck about the records

 

[therealjohnny]

someone post that picture of lenny in his tight shorts for a laugh

who wears short shorts


( deep grumble ) aah wear short shorts (/ deep grumble )

 

[Pantone247]

Update on "Death of a Ladies Man"
Jeepers. Oul Phil Spector just would not be deterred from doing his Thing, would he?

and when deterred, according to this, he held Lenny up agains a wall stuck a gun under his nose and said

"I love you Lenny"

"Phil, I really hope you do"

heh

I think Len thinks his battle is done when he's written the song, and doesn't give a flying fuck about the records

I think that's probably the long and short of it, yeah

 

[Jim Daniels]

Update on "Death of a Ladies Man"
Jeepers. Oul Phil Spector just would not be deterred from doing his Thing, would he?

I think Len thinks his battle is done when he's written the song, and doesn't give a flying fuck about the records

He did a great interview with Dave Fanning years ago about the whole Phil Spector story. Here's a bit .... http://www.webheights.net/speakingcohen/fanning.htm

DF: I spoke to Ronnie Spector on the program some time back and she had these really terrible stories about her ex-husband. You did Death of a Ladies' Man with him. It's an album that a lot of people will talk to you about because they can put a handle on that one where they might miss out on New Skin for the Old Ceremony or Recent Song, but they'll hone in on Death of a Ladies' Man because of the Phil Spector stories that go with it. Do you look upon it as an interesting experiment that sort of gets a thumb sideways as opposed to a thumbs up or a thumbs down? That it could have maybe been better without Phil Spector?
LC: Well, it could have been better without Leonard Cohen.

DF: It was without Leonard Cohen at the end, wasn't it?
LC: More or less, yeah. At a certain point I even suggested to Phil I think, that he sing. He is a good singer, Phil is incidentally, no one knows that. I felt it took a different kind of singer, a more powerful singer. I think I could do it now. I think I could handle it now. I think that record could be a great record without Leonard Cohen. I think if it had had Bill Medley or one of the Righteous Brothers or Aaron Neville today, that kind of voice.

DF: The wall of sound.
LC: Someone who could really climb that wall and walk on it like the China Wall and rejoice on top of that wall, it would have been a grand piece of work. As it was, I don't think I had the chops to meet it.

DF: But at the same time, the circumstances were pretty strange. How crazy was the scene, guns, guns and guns?
LC: It was as crazy as you could possibly imagine. It was crazier than I thought at the time. Looking back on it I see everyone was around the bend. Phil was around the bend. And I was around the bend for being there. My own life was breaking up and God knows what was happening to him because he was over the hill. Everybody was armed. You'd slip on bullets. Your hamburger was full of guns. Everywhere you turned there was a gun. That would have been bad enough but everyone was drunk too. I remember Phil pulled a gun on the fiddle player in the song "Fingerprints". He was country boy and he just stood up and put his fiddle in the case and walked out. Phil approached me with a bottle of Manischewitz red wine. That's a kosher wine, sweet wine. You wouldn't want to drink it. I don't know why Phil was drinking it. And [Phil had] a .45 in the other [hand] and [he] put his arm around my shoulder and nuzzled the gun into my neck and said, "I love you, Leonard" (DF laughs) and I said, "I hope you do, Phil." (DF laughs even more)

DF: One last thing, I really want to know, it's the album I'm Your Fan. For a lot of bands of recent years, bands I play on the program all the time, line them all up and they come out with a Leonard Cohen album. How does it make you feel?
LC: It makes you feel great. There's nothing I can say about it. People ask me what I think about this performance or that performance. Well, I go into immediate critical suspension when I hear someone covering one of my songs. To have a whole album of your songs done by these great bands, well there's nothing you can say about it except thank you.
http://www.webheights.net/speakingcohen/fanning.htm

 

[Pantone247]

interestingly to no one but me, years ago I had that interview on tape, I was recording a thing on my four track (with my girlfriend at the time, who is now my babas mama) and didn't want to sing so I just dropped chunks of that interview on to the song at various points, mostly...

"But there's no need for us to throw up our hands in despair. Someone is going to arise with some cultural tool to make the heart manifest. It doesn't seem to be around right now. "

as I said of interest to no one, but I haven't thought about it in years.... um... so... it's a pretty slow work day, y'know?

 

[snakybus]

who wears short shorts


( deep grumble ) aah wear short shorts (/ deep grumble )

I love you, Johnny.

 

[Jim Daniels]

interestingly to no one but me, years ago I had that interview on tape, I was recording a thing on my four track (with my girlfriend at the time, who is now my babas mama) and didn't want to sing so I just dropped chunks of that interview on to the song at various points, mostly...

"But there's no need for us to throw up our hands in despair. Someone is going to arise with some cultural tool to make the heart manifest. It doesn't seem to be around right now. "

as I said of interest to no one, but I haven't thought about it in years.... um... so... it's a pretty slow work day, y'know?

No, thats pretty cool Pantone. I have it on tape somewhere too. I used to listen to it over and over. He is the supreme interviewee. You can tell Fanning is having a great time.

 

[Pantone247]

his voice on it is just astounding, he could be reading the phonebook and you'd still be hanging on his every word...