Happiest of Birthdays to Leonard Cohen

AHHH, the poetry and songs of Leonard Cohen who turns 73 today. If I had to choose my favorite male artist, it WOULD be, Leonard Cohen. To read his biography, link here

Although Leonard Cohens music and writing had been around for many years, he burst on the scene in a popular way when his music was used for the soundtrack of Robert Altman's movie, movie "McCabe and Mrs. Miller". Three of his songs were used for the movie, but my favorite is "The Sisters of Mercy" (lyrics)






"The Stranger Song" is also from "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" (listen, lyrics) Come to think of it, "The Stranger Song" is a "favorite" also!



Cohen also wrote the theme song for the movie "Natural Born Killers" (listen here)
(lyrics) as well as "The Future" (lyrics) from the same movie.

It's almost impossible to choose my favorite Leonard Cohen songs, because they are all so darn good. But for the sake of saving space, here are a few.


"Dance Me to the End of Love" (lyrics)





"First We Take Manhattan" lyrics:

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

more>>>>>>

WATCH AND LISTEN FOR SURE (interesting comments below-one person is claiming Cohen's lyrics are saying "This song is about the Jewish takeover of NYC. Interesting how he can so openly state their purpose and yet no one hears it. Funny shit.
Anyway, good song." Another states "I read his own explanation of this song. The song is about his music and what he feels and his frustration around the music industry. Manhattan is like the nerve in the music industri. Berlin is the hardest plays for him to play (he says) because of its history. It's the beginning of a world tour, and Berlin is the final destination. It's actually said several times that it not is a political song.. Don't know if this made sense, but I have a big book with explanations to all his songs."


"Suzanne" (Lyrics)





Poetry on youtube "A Thousand Kisses Deep" (with lyrics on sidebar)


The POWERFUL "Everyone Knows"

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

lyrics continued>>>>>






Quite frankly, I never knew Cohen's precise politics other than he speaks to the deepest part of the soul. There is not a version sung by him of "Lover, Lover, Lover" but the below video is sung by John Bleimer at a concert given this year in tribute to Leonard Cohen for his more than 40 years of work. I also don't speak French so I have no idea what JohnBleimer is saying.

In 1973, Cohen, who had traveled to Jerusalem to sign up on the Israeli side in the Yom Kippur War, had instead been assigned to a USO-style entertainer tour of front-line tank emplacements in the Sinai Desert, at one of which he both came under fire and reportedly shared cognac with an unlikely self-professed fan, then-General Ariel Sharon. Disillusioned by encounters with captured and wounded enemy troops, and having expressed ambivalence from the start about the causes of the conflict, he eventually left, but not before beginning to write his song "Lover Lover Lover," as he later claimed, "for the soldiers of both sides."^[10]

^{I might add, both victims of Zionism, one choosing and suffering in their missing souls and safety, the other, the victim of the first's choice.}

In 2001, following the five years' seclusion as a Zen Buddhist monk at the Mt. Baldy Zen Centre (where he served as personal assistant to Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi), Cohen returned to music with Ten New Songs, featuring a heavy influence from producer and co-composer Sharon Robinson. With this album, Cohen shed the relatively extroverted, engaged, and even optimistic outlook of The Future (the sole political track, “The Land of Plenty,”(lyrics) abandoning stern commandment for yearning but helpless prayer) to lament and seek acceptance of varieties of personal loss: the approach of death and the departure of love, romantic and even divine


Leonard Cohen - Lover Lover Lover Lyrics
I asked my father,
I said, "Father change my name."
The one I'm using now it's covered up
with fear and filth and cowardice and shame.
Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me,
yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.

He said, "I locked you in this body,
I meant it as a kind of trial.
You can use it for a weapon,
or to make some woman smile."

Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me
yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.

"Then let me start again," I cried,
"please let me start again,
I want a face that's fair this time,
I want a spirit that is calm."

Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me
yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.

"I never never turned aside," he said,
"I never walked away.
It was you who built the temple,
it was you who covered up my face."

Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me
yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.

And may the spirit of this song,
may it rise up pure and free.
May it be a shield for you,
a shield against the enemy.

Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me
yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.

Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me
yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.