Issue Twelve
“Two Jews in Search of Song” by Zale Bernstein
“Leonard Cohen’s songs, while not spirituals per say, in their sensuality and spirituality reflect some of the same qualities that absorb the listener.”
Leonard Cohen in his seventh decade has a new movie out, his only movie out. I’m your man, his man, my man, your man, anyone’s man, everyone’s man
Watching and listening to him perform or others performing his songs one suddenly is cocooned in the sensuality of his spiritual devotion, dichotomy between body and spirit coalesce into the ambiguity upon which faith flourishes. One only has to observe this bond in the spiritual sung in Afro-American churches to realize this sensuality of devotion is not unique. In that environment the fever is created by the courting of spiritual devotion by the sensuality of the chorus and parishioners. There the spiritual love is veritably transferred to the physical.
Here, (in that setting) there is synthesis of sensuality, sexuality, spirituality and fidelity to God.
Leonard Cohen’s songs, while not spirituals per say, in their sensuality and spirituality reflect some of the same qualities that absorb the listener.
Lover lover lover come back to me can be seen on the surface as an apparent paean from a dethroned lover, but the subsequent entreaties “you may come back to me in faith or you may come back to me in disbelief” can also be interpreted as a call to the lapsed to return to the flock, “it was you who chose to hide your face” comes directly from the Old Testament, so the lover in this song may be the embodiment of both physical and spiritual devotion, loss and return. Perhaps another “closer to my Lord to thee.” In who by fire, he recasts the prayers from the Jewish high holy days in which all the mirror images of the human condition are reflected upon.
If it be your will is also a wonderful exposition of supplication, perhaps physical, perhaps spiritual, perhaps a lover, perhaps God, perhaps love of God. Here truly in the eyes of the believer is a hymn or a love song. A slave to love and a slave to God are one and the same.
Yet in other songs he is unabashedly sexual, such as Chelsea Hotel “you were giving me head in the unmade bed,” but these are always coddled in the arms of human frailty, regret, and remorse. The beacons that lead one to the house of faith and devotion.
One cannot avoid comparing him to the other great Hebraic story teller and mythmaker of his generation, Robert Abraham Zimmerman. At his best, he describes, in poetic lightening, out of mind and body surrealistic episodes. There is no concrete devotion to love and loss though the words describe the same. Anger often bleeds the life from these songs. “Just once I wish you could stand inside my boots, so you can see what a drag it is to see you.”
Here there is no head or unmade bed but rather “remember me to the one who lives there for she once was a true love of mine.”
While evocative in anger or remorseful in regret, they do not communicate the ambiguity and irony of Cohen. After describing conversations, confrontations and rejections in the Chelsea hotel he ends with “I really don’t think of you that often.”
In Famous Blue Raincoat, Cohen tells the tale of failed relationships whispering behind a veil. At the end of the pantomime you are really unsure–not clear, of what transpired. What we begin with or what we end with. In Dylan’s songs such as Sad eyed lady of the lowlands you are confronted on stage with violent colors of emotion surrealism without subtlety.
Cohen details human relationships without clothes, while Dylan costumes his characters in the garb of surrealistic myths.
Yet they are all aging. Dylan’s Not dark yet, but it’s getting there abuts with Cohen’s “I ache in the places where I used to play” they both arrive at there own personal visions. One often with anger the other with anguish. Both offer poetic portals to the human condition.
Watching and listening to him perform or others performing his songs one suddenly is cocooned in the sensuality of his spiritual devotion, dichotomy between body and spirit coalesce into the ambiguity upon which faith flourishes. One only has to observe this bond in the spiritual sung in Afro-American churches to realize this sensuality of devotion is not unique. In that environment the fever is created by the courting of spiritual devotion by the sensuality of the chorus and parishioners. There the spiritual love is veritably transferred to the physical.
Here, (in that setting) there is synthesis of sensuality, sexuality, spirituality and fidelity to God.
Leonard Cohen’s songs, while not spirituals per say, in their sensuality and spirituality reflect some of the same qualities that absorb the listener.
Lover lover lover come back to me can be seen on the surface as an apparent paean from a dethroned lover, but the subsequent entreaties “you may come back to me in faith or you may come back to me in disbelief” can also be interpreted as a call to the lapsed to return to the flock, “it was you who chose to hide your face” comes directly from the Old Testament, so the lover in this song may be the embodiment of both physical and spiritual devotion, loss and return. Perhaps another “closer to my Lord to thee.” In who by fire, he recasts the prayers from the Jewish high holy days in which all the mirror images of the human condition are reflected upon.
If it be your will is also a wonderful exposition of supplication, perhaps physical, perhaps spiritual, perhaps a lover, perhaps God, perhaps love of God. Here truly in the eyes of the believer is a hymn or a love song. A slave to love and a slave to God are one and the same.
Yet in other songs he is unabashedly sexual, such as Chelsea Hotel “you were giving me head in the unmade bed,” but these are always coddled in the arms of human frailty, regret, and remorse. The beacons that lead one to the house of faith and devotion.
One cannot avoid comparing him to the other great Hebraic story teller and mythmaker of his generation, Robert Abraham Zimmerman. At his best, he describes, in poetic lightening, out of mind and body surrealistic episodes. There is no concrete devotion to love and loss though the words describe the same. Anger often bleeds the life from these songs. “Just once I wish you could stand inside my boots, so you can see what a drag it is to see you.”
Here there is no head or unmade bed but rather “remember me to the one who lives there for she once was a true love of mine.”
While evocative in anger or remorseful in regret, they do not communicate the ambiguity and irony of Cohen. After describing conversations, confrontations and rejections in the Chelsea hotel he ends with “I really don’t think of you that often.”
In Famous Blue Raincoat, Cohen tells the tale of failed relationships whispering behind a veil. At the end of the pantomime you are really unsure–not clear, of what transpired. What we begin with or what we end with. In Dylan’s songs such as Sad eyed lady of the lowlands you are confronted on stage with violent colors of emotion surrealism without subtlety.
Cohen details human relationships without clothes, while Dylan costumes his characters in the garb of surrealistic myths.
Yet they are all aging. Dylan’s Not dark yet, but it’s getting there abuts with Cohen’s “I ache in the places where I used to play” they both arrive at there own personal visions. One often with anger the other with anguish. Both offer poetic portals to the human condition.