Leonard Cohen - Ain't No Cure For Love (Rosemont Theatre, Chicago 2009)
Naked In Leonard Cohen’s “Ain’t No Cure For Love”
This is the 4th post in the Heck Of A Guy Leonard Cohen On Nakedness series.1
As noted in the earlier entries in this series, a number of songs by Leonard Cohen include the word, “naked.” The use of that term in the second verse of “Ain’t No Cure For Love,” however, is especially – well, revealing:
I’m aching for you baby
I can’t pretend I’m not
I need to see you naked
In your body and your thought
I’ve got you like a habit
And I’ll never get enough
There ain’t no cure,
There ain’t no cure,
There ain’t no cure for love [emphasis mine]
Applying his poetic skills, Cohen infuses the disarmingly simple twelve word sentence, “I need to see you naked / In your body and your thought,” with multiple potential meanings.
“I need to see you naked / In your body and your thought,” for example, would subsume but also qualitatively extend “naked” as it is used in the punch line of “Memories:”2
So won’t you let me see
I said “won’t you let me see”
I said “won’t you let me see
Your naked body?” [emphasis mine]
… as it does with the less adolescent and more doleful use of “naked” in “Everybody Knows:”
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past [emphasis mine]
“I need to see you naked / In your body and your thought,” in fact, evokes the same sense of “naked” set forth by these lines from “Dance Me To The End Of Love:”
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love [emphasis mine]
In this case, “naked” covers the spectrum from achieving personal, anatomical intimacy to accessing a lover’s feelings, convictions, fantasies, … the totality of those heavily defended psychological constructs that form one’s very core.
After all, if one’s body and mind are totally exposed – i.e., naked – what can be hidden?
Besides, it’s a great song. You can trust me on this one - on October 29, 2009, I saw Leonard Cohen sing “Ain’t No Cure For Love” at Chicago’s Rosemont Theatre, and Albert Noonan captured that performance on video.
Previous Posts From The Heck Of A Guy Leonard Cohen On Nakedness Series
All posts from the Heck Of A Guy Leonard Cohen On Nakedness Series can be found at Leonard Cohen On Nakedness Catalog
- Joni Mitchell & Tom Robbins On Leonard Cohen and “Naked”
Joni Mitchell observed
Leonard Cohen owns the phrase naked body, for example; it appears in every one of his songs.
Somehow, Joni made this seem a bad thing – go figure.
Writing on Leonard Cohen’s voice in the liner notes of the “Tower of Song” tribute album, Tom Robbins addressed the “naked” issue from a different perspective:
It is a voice raked by the claws of Cupid, a voice rubbed raw by the philosopher´s stone. A voice marinated in Kirschwasser, sulfur, deer musk and snow; bandaged with sackcloth from a ruined monastery; warmed by the embers left down near the river after the gypsies have gone. It is a penitent´s voice, a rabbinical voice, a crust of unleavened vocal toasts – spread with smoke and subversive wit. He has a voice like a carpet in an old hotel, like a bad itch on the hunchback of love. It is a voice meant for pronouncing the names of women – and cataloging their sometimes hazardous charms. Nobody can say the word “naked” as nakedly as Cohen He makes us see the markings where the pantyhose have been. [emphasis mine]
These two quotes led me to investigate the appearance of “naked” and its variations in Cohen’s writings, songs, and art and create a series of posts featuring those works. [↩]
- See Leonard Cohen On Nakedness – Won’t You Let Me See Your Naked Body [↩]
A great read, Allan… thanks x