From Leonard Cohen via Neo-Neocon to Billy Joel to Elton John resonating with Lady Lawanda to Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush
From left to right, Top: Leonard Cohen,1 Neo-Neocon,2 Billy Joel3
Bottom: Elton John,4 Lady Lawanda,5 Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush6
In The Beginning
Today’s music video selection evolved through a convoluted sequence of events this morning that began with…
Leonard Cohen
I routinely monitor blog references to Leonard Cohen.7 When an intriguing snippet showed up on one of the automated reports this morning, I followed it to…
Neo-Neocon
The April 4th post, What do Billy Joel and Leonard Cohen (and Billy Joel and Salman Rushdie) have in common? made the case that Cohen’s “Closing Time” is connected to Billy Joel’s “Piano Man:”
They’re both set in bars, of course. But the similarities don’t stop there. They’re both about the attempt to forget troubles in a throng of revelers, the pursuit of fun that can partake of desperation. And they’re both about the desire to forget loneliness, and the way it can sometimes pursue a person even in a crowd. Maybe especially in a crowd.
The difference is in the tone. Cohen emphasizes the dark within which a bit of light shines, while Joel sees light with overtones of dark. My guess is that Cohen was influenced in subtle ways by the earlier Joel piece when he made his own video. It’s almost a tribute to the first one, a deeply noir version of an already-slightly-noir vision. [Italics mine]
Given that, except for his first years as a professional when he worked and lived with the musicians at the core of folk singing, Leonard Cohen appears to have listened to only a small number of select contemporaneous singers8 and given the paucity of specific references to popular music in his work,9 the notion that “Closing Time,” a Leonard Cohen song that came out in 1992 was influenced by Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” released 20 years earlier, seemed unlikely; that the video of “Piano Man” had a an impact on Cohen’s efforts seemed even more improbable.
On the other hand, I’ve too often been ambushed by my own logic, only to witness the presumably impossible occur, to cavalierly offer up absolute declarations without at least doing a cursory round of research about links between Leonard Cohen and …
Billy Joel
In the process of checking out Billy Joel, I came across a New York Times article, Elton John and Billy Joel, Talking About Songs by Anthony Decurtis (New York Times, Mar 10, 2002). The immediately relevant points were Billy Joel’s own characterization of “Piano Man,”
People who just know Billy Joel from top-40 hit singles may not like me, and I can’t say I necessarily blame them. I don’t think that really represents the sum and substance of my work. I think a lot of my hits were almost novelty songs. ”Uptown Girl” was a joke. So was ”Tell Her About It” — that was my take on the Supremes. Even ”Piano Man” was a wacko song. I mean, people thought it was Harry Chapin. But as long as it was a hit, that was all the record company cared about.
… and his response to the question, “Do you think you’ll write pop songs again?”
I don’t know what it will take. I always wanted to be a better lyric writer than I was. I wanted to write surrealistic lyrics like David Bowie or abstract lyrics like Dylan or philosophical lyrics like Leonard Cohen. Lyrics that weren’t so bloody literal. It’s interesting, because it will be going on 10 years since I’ve actually written a song.
While that was interesting and, in a generic way, supportive of my position, that same article also included this comment from …
Elton John
I mean, when I was a drug addict and at the depth of my despair, I used to listen to ”Don’t Give Up” by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush. That was my life in words and music. That’s what songs do to people. When I was at my worst, I still clung to music.
My focus then shifted to …
Lady Lawanda
Lady Lawanda, as some readers know, has been facing severe health problems that have been in exacerbation lately. And, while she belongs to the stiff upper lip, never say surrender school, “Don’t Give Up” certainly seemed a worthwhile theme for the weekend.
So, it was off to YouTube to find …
Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush
OK, “Don’t Give Up,” which came out in 1986, is hardly perfect. For one things, the lyrics describe the woes of a man who doesn’t fit the economic system as it existed in England during that period and the support offered by the woman in his life. It’s also a tad mawkish, it smacks a bit too much of a Stand By Your Man sentiment, and, as you’ll see, the video10 features one looooong and eventually awkward hug.
Still, Elton John saw something special in it - as do Lady Lawanda and I.
Maybe you will as well.
Don’t Give Up - Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush (Version 1)
Footnotes
- From Field Commander Cohen album↩
- From Neo-Neocon blog↩
- From Greatest Hits album↩
- From concert↩
- From Chocolodka post↩
- From Don’t Give Up video↩
- I also follow references to Anjani, Patient Compliance, and perhaps a half-dozen other topics↩
- See discussion at Leonard Cohen listens to?↩
- Among the few exceptions are, for example, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan↩
- There were originally two videos produced. The second featured the faces of Gabriel and Bush superimposed over the scenes of a town and its people struck by impoverishment↩
