Entries from August 2008
The observation that a multitude of hitherto trivial incidents and everyday items become painfully poignant following the death of a loved one is little more than a pedestrian sentiment. Still, some sentiments, whether pedestrian or profound, demand acknowledgment.
Familiar TV shows, old movies, specific dates, trinkets, and favorite foods are a few of the instances today that called Lady Lawanda to mind.
Songs, however, have proved especially moving. Last week, Duke of Derm reminded me of a song, one of his favorites and one I had almost forgotten, that has remained in my mind and my heart.
Warren Zevon wrote and performed “Keep Me In Your Heart” after he was diagnosed with inoperable mesothelioma.
Keep Me In Your Heart
By Warren Zevon
Shadows are falling and I’m running out of breath
Keep me in your heart for awhile
If I leave you it doesn’t mean I love you any less
Keep me in your heart for awhile
When you get up in the morning and you see that crazy sun
Keep me in your heart for awhile
There’s a train leaving nightly called “when all is said and done”
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Sometimes when you’re doing simple things around the house
Maybe you’ll think of me and smile
You know I’m tied to you like the buttons on your blouse
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Hold me in your thoughts, take me to your dreams
Touch me as I fall into view
When the winter comes keep the fires lit
And I will be right next to you
Engine driver’s headed north to Pleasant Stream
Keep me in your heart for awhile
These wheels keep turning but they’re running out of steam
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Keep Me In Your Heart by Warren Zevon
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Tags: Friends-Family · Music
Cohen on screen (Click on graphic to expand image)
The Dublin Concerts
Leonard Cohen just completed three concerts in Dublin.
Cohen arrives on stage (Click on graphic to expand image)
The Who’s Who Who Were In The Audience
According to the June 16, 2008 Herald story, concert attendees at the three sold-out 10,000 seat venue included Bertie Ahern, Justice Minister Dermot Ahern, Gerry Adams, Bono and his wife Ali, U2 manager Paul McGuinness and his wife, and Gerry Ryan and his family.
Webb Sisters on tele (Click on graphic to expand image)
The Criticism
OK, everyone (really, everyone) seems to have been enthralled by Cohen’s performance. This excerpt from The Independent is characteristic:
The 23-song set list takes in all facets of his career with ‘The Future’, ‘Everybody Knows’ and ‘In My Secret Life’ leaving an indelible mark. ‘Tower of Song’ proves especially engaging, provoking mirth when he sings of aching “in the places where I used to play” and cheers with the line “I was blessed with a golden voice.” There’s reverential silence for ‘Suzanne’ — a song that he debuted 41 years ago, and which still retains its understated majesty. Clearly, he’s as delighted to be playing Dublin — as is the audience. After a spine-tingling spoken word version of ‘A Thousand Kisses Deep’ he’s fulsome in his gratitude. “It’s a great privilege to say a poem to you in this city of poets and singers.”
The Venue (Click on graphic to expand image)
Not everyone, however, was enthralled by the location. In the comments section of that same Independent article, for example, Esmeralda writes,
Disappointed with the low-class concert venue, plastic, slippery flooring, foldable chairs that you had to sit on in the pouring rain. Thank you to those entertaining dancers that defied the ridiculously strict stewards who forced you to sit down when you were waltzing to “Take This Waltz.” At least dancing could have kept us warm in the rain. Leonard Cohen is a class act, he is playing indoor concert halls, opera theaters, castle grounds in countries with more stable weather on the continent. Concert goers are willing to pay, but we want first class venues for giants of music and art like L. Cohen. When will there be a concert organiser in Ireland with some ethics?
The problem with big screens at concerts is you just look at the screens
(Click on graphic to expand image)
And, in a forum dealing with performing environs, Forfismum observes
Good Lord, I thought that I had seen everything but……no. Yesterday went to see young Cohen in Dublin. The sound check did not start until 5 pm, the official time for the gates to open.The publicity for the gig at the Royal Hospital Dublin Royal Hospital Kilmainham: Conference Facilities for Conferences & Corporate Entertainment in Ireland boasted of a champagne bar, wine bar, Thai food etc all above the quality of the usual concerts, and we had looked forward to a nice picnic before the off at 7.15. We were at the entrance in a smashing setting at 5 and a queue started to form which built until 6.45, but the queue seemed to develope a mushroom head as new folks arrived. Not yer usual lowlifes like myself but “posh” and “artistic” plonkers who thought that queuing was for the dirty peasants and this was pathetic as the venue was all seats, no need to panic etc.
Anyway to the point. Halfway through Cohens performance the crowd from the back seats moved en masse into the two aisles leading to the stage. The security people did their best but were outnumbered and all they could do was hold the mob back. The police could not get in as they were at the back scratching their bums, I mean, who would expect crowd violence from a gang of old women fans of the venerable Leonard?
I am dead serious here folks, I have never seen such behaviour at concert before. Slipknot, Pixies, Radiohead, Muse, all full of teenagers and only the odd skirmish but this was scary. Crazed 50-70 year old women [and men] determined to see their God, but not in the way that kids worship bands, there was a fanatic aspect to it that i have never seen before. One of Irish radios top presenters was in our row with 4 kids and he was escorted our by a phlanx of security guys and we had mad bastards trying to climb over our seats and over us, as I said, scary. If you were to see these women in the shops you would think that they were harmless, that there was no danger but some form of mass hysteria seems to have taken over. The security boys and girls were magnificent in preventing a disaster, remember the Bradford fire? the Hyshel [spelling] disaster? and other such events. The faces on some of these people and the eyes were frightneing. Give me a mosh pit any day.
There is an ongoing discussion on the pros and cons of the Dublin setting and the crowd, part of which can be found at LeonardCohenForum.com
End of concert (Click on graphic to expand image)
Credit Due Department:
Photos (and most captions) are by Karl Smyth.
Footnotes
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Tags: Leonard Cohen
June 15th, 2008 · Comments Off
This enchanting photo by Karl Smyth shows members of the audience at Leonard Cohen’s Dublin Concert waltzing to - yep - “Take This Waltz.”
The shot below, also by Karl Smyth provides a sense of the size of the venue, an impressive contrast with the more intimate settings of earlier performances in Cohen’s 2008 World Tour.
Both images can be enlarged by clicking on the graphic.
There are still more Karl Smyth photos from this concert that he has graciously permitted Heck of a Guy to post that will come online once I arrive home, but I couldn’t wait to publish these.
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Tags: Leonard Cohen
June 13th, 2008 · Comments Off
Leonard Cohen Interview June 4, 2008Yesterday, Brian Johnson posted the full transcript and partial video of his backstage interview with Leonard Cohen that took place June 4, 2008 at Hamilton Place.
I’ve pasted a couple of excerpts below to give the flavor of the piece:
Q: After 14 years off the road, what brought you back?
A: Well, one of the things was that pesky little financial situation, which totally wiped me out. So I’m very grateful that I had a way to make a living, because that was indicated in very powerful terms. It wasn’t the prime motivator. Thanks to the help of Robert Kory, who is unique among lawyers in that he deferred his fees until the situation was resolved, which is not just unusual but unheard of, I would say, for a lawyer in Los Angeles. So he was able to somehow right the shipwreck. As it turned out, I could have gotten by. But all the time, even when I was in the monastery at Mt. Baldy, there were times when I would ask myself, “Are you really never going to get up on a stage again?” It was always unresolved. It would arise. Not daily, not even monthly. But from time to time, I’d see my guitar. I was still writing songs. But the idea of performing was starting to recede further and further back. One of the reasons was that I was so wiped out physically by the end of my last tour because I was drinking heavily. I was drinking about three bottles of wine by the end of the tour.
Q: Three bottles a day?
A: Before every concert. I only drank professionally, I never drank after the concert. I would never drink after intermission. It was a long tour. It must have been 60 to 70 concerts.
Q: Why did you need to drink?
A: I was very nervous. And I liked drinking. And I found this wine, it was Château Latour. Now very expensive. It was even expensive then. It’s curious with wine. The wine experts talk about the flavour and the bouquet and whether it has legs and the tannins and the fruit and the symphonies of tastes. But nobody talks about the high. Bordeaux is a wine that vintners have worked on for about 1,000 years. Each wine has a very specific high, which is never mentioned. Château Latour, I don’t know how I stumbled on it, but it went with the music, and it went with the concert. I tried to drink it after the tour was over, and I could hardly get a glass down. It had no resonance whatsoever. It needed the adrenaline of the concert and the music and the atmosphere, the kind of desperate atmosphere of touring—desperate because I was drinking so much! I had a good time with it for a while, but it did wreck my health, and I put on about 25 pounds.
________________________
Q: What’s your relationship status these days?
A: With Anjani?
Q: Yes.
A: It’s a good relationship. I’ve known her for a long, long time. She’s just finished six songs of her own for a new album. She went to a little cabin in Wyoming for the last month and has written this album. So I’m very anxious to hear it.
The full transcript can be found at Cohen wore earplugs to a Dylan show?
Leonard Cohen Macleans Magazine Interview June 4, 2008
Credit Due Department: The graphic is composed of still shots from the interview’s video
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Tags: Leonard Cohen · Self-Referential
June 10th, 2008 · Comments Off
Comments On Comments From Rolling Stone, Star, & Blogger
Contributed by Anonymous Benefactor at GoodCleanWholesomeFun:
Credit Due Department:
The photo is from the referenced Rolling Stone article
Footnotes
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Tags: Leonard Cohen
June 9th, 2008 · Comments Off
Anonymous Benefactor Offers More Cohen Toronto Videos, Designates Best Review
These videos of Cohen’s 7 June 2008 performance in Toronto can be found at GoodCleanWholesomeFun:
The big news, however, is the discovery (finally) of a dandy review of the show: We Have A Winner - The Globeandmail.com review ( A Hogtown Hallelujah by J.D. Considine)
Credit Due Department: The wonderful photo of the cat doffing his hat is part of the also wonderful Globeandmail.com review.
Footnotes
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Tags: Leonard Cohen
Good Clean Wholesome Fun Features Videos Of Leonard Cohen Live In Toronto, Rates Reviews Uninspired Albeit Positive
A plethora of videos of songs from the Leonard Cohen Toronto concerts and annotated links examining the reviews of those performances now reside at GoodCleanWholesome Fun thanks to my anonymous stand-in.
My quick survey of the site this morning shows a menu that includes videos of
