Heck Of A Guy

A pastiche of posts, featuring song, dance, snappy chatter plus notes on prose, poesy, love, lust, life, and beyond

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Another Great Leonard Cohen Performance Of "Do I Have To Dance All Night"

March 17th, 2010 · Leonard Cohen

The Silky Smooth "Do I Have To Dance All Night"

As bootleg aficionado, messalina79, describes it, this is a “silky smooth version of Do I Have To Dance All Night from Montreux 1976.”

What more is there to say about this outstanding rendition of the best unreleased Leonard Cohen song1 other than identifying the backup singers as Sheryl Barnes and Laura Branigan? Just hit the embedded video player, sit back, and enjoy.

You can discover more about "Do I Have To Dance All Night" and DrHGuy’s fascination with and personal crusade to popularize this song at The Best Leonard Cohen Song You’ve Never Heard (Probably)

Leonard Cohen – Do I Have To Dance All Night? (live 1976)

Video from messalina79

Bonus: Leonard Cohen – Tonight Will Be Fine

From the same 1976 Montreux concert, messalina79 also offers this nifty, upbeat performance of "Tonight Will Be Fine."

Leonard Cohen – Tonight Will Be Fine (live 1976)

Video from messalina79

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  1. Yes, I know it was released as a single. You know what I mean. See The Best Leonard Cohen Song You’ve Never Heard (Probably)

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Leonard Cohen, Buffy Sainte-Marie, God, Magic, & Monty Python

March 17th, 2010 · Leonard Cohen

Back To Blogging

For the first full-fledged post following this blog’s return from its sojourn in the perpetual darkness of the Kingdom of the Offline where Heck Of A Guy was subjected to the agonies of host site chaos and the torment of collapsing readership numbers consequent to a week’s absence, viewers have every right to expect an erudite, clever, and, above all, significant post to properly commemorate the occasion.

So, to those readers, Mr Cohen, Ms Sainte-Marie, the fans of those esteemed performers, and those invested in the institution(s) of God and Magic, I offer … my profound apologies.

Futher, those viewers who know themselves to be especially suggestible, easy prey for sales pitches, exquisitely sensitive or impressionable, or sought-after as subjects by stage hypnotists1 may wish to avert their eyes at this point.

Today’s post, you see, limns the dramatic and apparently permanent transformation in my mind of a deeply spiritual passage, expressed in prose by Leonard Cohen and in music by Buffy Sainte-Marie, into a incredibly gauche, irredeemably jejune scrap of absurdity. I present myself as an object lesson – don’t let this happen to you.

Before the horror is revealed, however, some background is required.

“God is Alive, Magic is Afoot” – The Origins

For those unfamiliar with the origins of this prose-poem, the following explanation from Take This Longing From My Tongue by Sean Elder (Salon Jun 15, 1999) is helpful in providing context:

Indeed, his first poetry collection was called “Let Us Compare Mythologies,” and his celebrated second novel, “Beautiful Losers” (1966), told the story of three (or maybe four) lovers who seemed to exist in a world of their own making. The narrator, an amateur anthropologist trying to reconstruct the myth of his life long after the others are gone, is driven and vexed by the memory of his best friend, F. — who, true to his initial, fucks everything that moves: the narrator, the narrator’s wife, the last surviving female members of a Native American tribe the narrator is studying. F. ends up “in a padded cell, his brain rotted from too much dirty sex,” but before he dies he leads the narrator to a revelation, “the sweet burden of my argument”:

God is alive. Magic is afoot. God is alive. Magic is afoot. God is afoot. Magic is alive. Alive is afoot. Magic never died. God never sickened. Many poor men lied. Many sick men lied. Magic never weakened. Magic never hid. Magic always ruled. God is afoot. God was ruler though his funeral lengthened. Though his mourners thickened Magic never fled …

In this ecstatic passage (which Buffy St. Marie later recorded as a sort of incantation), Cohen has it both ways — god and shaman, mystic and the pagan — and he didn’t need Timothy Leary to guide him. (Hydra, where he wrote “Beautiful Losers,” was full of pleasure-seeking expatriates then, with visitors that included Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso, and Cohen had made the acquaintance of LSD back in New York.) He had his own myths. He didn’t need anyone else’s.

This passage2 was itself later published as an illustrated book called “God is Alive, Magic is Afoot.” The blurb for that volume includes this description:

In the middle of the novel comes a short section that begins with the words. ‘God is Alive. Magic is Afoot.’ The 400 or so words that follow are arguably some of the finest Cohen has ever written. In them he has created an inspirational mantra that explores the real meaning of Magic and God.

Leonard Cohen Recites “God is Alive, Magic is Afoot”

Leonard Cohen – “God is Alive, Magic is Afoot”

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Buffy Sainte-Marie Sings “God is Alive, Magic is Afoot”

Buffy Sainte-Marie first released “God is Alive, Magic is Afoot” on her album, Illuminations,  in 1969.

Buffy Sainte-Marie – “God is Alive, Magic is Afoot”

The Transformation Triggering Typo

As one might predict, a visionary, ethereal singer such as Buffy Sainte-Marie performing “an inspirational mantra that explores the real meaning of Magic and God” written by Leonard Cohen evokes a certain category of responses from careful listeners. These comments, found today on the YouTube page featuring the above Buffy Sainte-Marie video are characteristic:

Magic never faltered, magic always led!!! The Holy Spirit is here, now and available… I love the representation of the ‘Trinity’ at the end….. Father/Son/Holy Spirit portrayed as the Chief, the brave and the eagle….. wondrous….? and Leonard Cohen, what a writer!!!!

Magic…everywhere…in every rock and tree, in every thing that walks and crawls all that it wants is respect and a little gratitude and then we FEEL the magic. That’s where God? is. In the resonating center, in the feeling of gratitude and connection. And so…everything is magic if we choose to feel it. Buffy St Marie was a trailsetter in the mainstream world. She led the way home.

…   this, one of my favorite things from back in the day. One of the most amazing things I’ve ever heard.

Here’s my problem: the tag embedded in the  MP3 file of Leonard Cohen reciting “God is Alive, Magic is Afoot” erroneously listed the title as “God is Alive, Magic is A Foot.”

That typo immediately steered my thoughts to the classic Monty Python introduction.

And, indeed, since then, every time I hear either “God is alive, magic is afoot” or “God is afoot, magic is alive,” I see Magic/God is …

Again, my apologies.

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  1. Often, this can be discerned by a positive answer to the question, “Have you ever found yourself clucking like a chicken while in front of a large audience?”
  2. The complete passage follows:

    God is Alive, Magic is Afoot
    Lyrics by Leonard Cohen

    God is alive, magic is afoot
    God is alive, magic is afoot
    God is alive, magic is afoot
    God is afoot, magic is alive
    Alive is afoot, magic never died
    God never sickened
    Many poor men lied
    Many sick men lied
    Magic never weakened
    Magic never hid
    Magic always ruled
    God is afoot, God never died
    God was ruler
    Though his funeral lengthened
    Though his mourners thickened
    Magic never fled
    Though his shrouds were hoisted
    The naked God did live
    Though his words were twisted
    The naked magic thrived
    Though his death was published
    Round and round the world
    The heart did not believe

    Many hurt men wondered
    Many struck men bled
    Magic never faltered
    Magic always lead
    Many stones were rolled
    But God would not lie down
    Many wild men lied
    Many fat men listened
    Though they offered stones
    Magic still was fed
    Though they locked their coffers
    God was always served
    Magic is afoot, God is alive
    Alive is afoot

    Alive is in command
    Many weak men hungered
    Many strong men thrived
    Though they boast of solitude
    God was at their side
    Nor the dreamer in his cell
    Nor the captain on the hill
    Magic is alive
    Though his death was pardoned
    Round and round the world
    The heart would not believe

    Though laws were carved in marble
    They could not shelter men
    Though altars built in parliaments
    They could not order men
    Police arrested magic and magic went with them
    Mmmmm…. for magic loves the hungry
    But magic would not tarry
    It moves from arm to arm
    It would not stay with them
    Magic is afoot
    It cannot come to harm
    It rests in an empty palm
    It spawns in an empty mind
    But magic is no instrument
    Magic is the end
    Many men drove magic
    But magic stayed behind
    Many strong men lied
    They only passed through magic
    And out the other side
    Many weak men lied
    They came to God in secret
    And though they left Him nourished
    They would not tell who healed
    Though mountains danced before them
    They said that God was dead
    Though his shrouds were hoisted
    The naked God did live
    This I mean to whisper to my mind
    This I mean to laugh within my mind
    This I mean my mind to serve
    Til’ service is but magic
    Moving through the world
    And mind itself is magic
    Coursing through the flesh
    And flesh itself is magic
    Dancing on a clock
    And time itself
    The magic length of God

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Heck Of A Guy Is Back Online

March 16th, 2010 · HOAG Site

Previous Heck Of A Guy SQL Database

I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

From Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen

It’s A Broken Hallelujah Sort Of Thing

Leonard Cohen is said to have written more than 80 verses for what has become his best known song, “Hallelujah.”

As far as I can determine, not one line of those verses mentions repairing SQL databases, editing exported XML files, choosing between dedicated and virtual private servers, or conserving CPU usage.

But I can assure you that when one’s four year old pastiche of posts, featuring song, dance, snappy chatter plus notes on prose, poesy, love, lust, life, and beyond – and the occasional piece about Leonard Cohen – goes down for a week, those are the issues that occupy ones mind.

Thanks to the exploits of Shane, The Wizard Of WordPress & The Laureate of Linux, Heck Of A Guy Blog is again fully functional (or, depending on ones point of view, again fully dysfunctional).

And I’m hard at work on a new song celebrating the Sysadmins Of Mercy.

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