Leonard Cohen — Poetry is for everyone #16
Has there lived a soul more Autumnal than this one?
Around this time last year I watched the documentary Hallelujah which focused on the creation of the most covered song of all time and how it came to have such an historic and cultural impact. Like Leonard Cohen himself, the film is an absolute class act, I really can’t recommed it highly enough but it reminded me of that one time that my flatmate had gotten tickets to go and see him perform live on his last ever tour, and for whatever reason I couldn’t go. It presses on my heart, now. I wish I’d moved things around. I wish I’d seen him take that last waltz.
Leonard Cohen was a prolific writer of all things but ultimately a poet, bones to sky. His lyrics heady, sensual, meandering and so god damn evocative. His reverberating baritone integral to their conveyance, another character in their narrative persuasion, in their intoxicating complexity.
Like a lot of people I discovered him via Jeff Buckley whose performance of Hallelujah is my favourite version of the song but once I found Cohen I got lost in his hypnotic vocal embrace for years. The Buckley gateway opened up a floodgate and pitched me down into the unplumbed depths of Cohen, whose endless spiritual searching is so subtly and yet affectingly present in his lyrics that they could lead pretty much anyone towards their own journey of discovery.
And yet and yet, I don’t listen to him so much anymore. It was a very particular time in my life that the rhythms and tones dominant in Cohen’s work resonated with me. They still hold a very special place in my own personal musical narrative but I really associate them with that time which I feel a little displaced from these days. A more maudlin time, a more contemplative time - as if - a more indulgent time then, maybe. But also a time that aptly underscored the early days of my own spiritual awakening. Happily you can now buy collections of these masterful lyrics to read like poetry if you prefer to connect with his work in this way as I do, and then just dip into the songs occasionally when the mood takes you.
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Perhaps surprisingly, I’m not sharing Hallelujah today — I thought about it. But instead I’ve decided to share my favourite song of his Suzanne which I was amazed to see just now when grabbing a link for it, is his most played song on Spotify over Hallelujah. Not just me that it’s a favourite for then — shame I’m not more individual in my music taste I guess but with over 127 million listens hopefully some aspect of it will resonate with you too.
The song is dream-like, soothing, graceful, alluring, soporific, I have shared it as well below. But as a piece of writing, it works on you the same but different. I invite you to read it ever so slowly and let its magic unfold for you in whatever way it needs to. Maybe even underscore it with the song playing. It’s the sort of lyrical assembly that beguiles. That draws you in and that like Suzanne, you’d want to follow anywhere. A siren’s call. Or Oberon’s flower’s kiss — love-in-idleness I think it’s called. Yeah, that feels about right, and that feels about right.
SUZANNE
Leonard Cohen
Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river You can hear the boats go by, you can spend the night beside her And you know that she's half-crazy but that's why you want to be there And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China And just when you mean to tell her that you have no love to give her Then she gets you on her wavelength And she lets the river answer that you've always been her lover And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind And then you know that she will trust you For you've touched her perfect body with your mind And Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water And he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him He said all men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them But he himself was broken, long before the sky would open Forsaken, almost human, he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone And you want to travel with him, and you want to travel blind And then you think maybe you'll trust him For he's touched your perfect body with his mind Now, Suzanne takes your hand and she leads you to the river She's wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters And the sun pours down like honey on our lady of the harbor And she shows you where to look among the garbage and the flowers There are heroes in the seaweed, there are children in the morning They are leaning out for love and they will lean that way forever While Suzanne holds the mirror And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind And then you know that you can trust her For she's touched your perfect body with her mind
Are you a Leonard Cohen fan? Did you ever get to see him perform live? Do you have a favourite song or performance of his? Were you familiar with Suzanne already? Do you want to travel with her?
If you’d like to explore more from any of the featured artists on our growing poetry curation, I have put together a selection on my Bookshop.org page <3
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