Best Of The 2008-2010 Leonard Cohen World Tour: Sexiest “I’m Your Man” – Radio City Music Hall 2009

The Best Of The 2008-2010 Leonard Cohen World Tour

Leonard Cohen last performed in concert in December 2010. Now, it’s less than three weeks until the 2012 Leonard Cohen Old Ideas World Tour begins – the perfect time to savor the best performances of the 2008-2010 Leonard Cohen World Tour.

The Luminously Libidinous Leonard Cohen Will “examine every, every precious inch of you”

Leonard Cohen – “I’m Your Man” May 17, 2009

Words cannot convey – at least not words I can safely use in a post my mother might someday read – the raunchy eroticism that radiates from Cohen’s lyrics, voice, intonation, footwork, facial expressions, and posture in the six minutes of lasciviousness that was Leonard Cohen’s May 17, 2009 performance of “I’m Your Man” at New York’s Radio City Music Hall.

The consequences of the nuanced changes in the lyrics are especially difficult to explain. The shift from the already provocative standard “I’m Your Man” lyrics,

And if you want a doctor
I’ll examine every inch of you

to the words used in this rendition (words added by Cohen are in bold),

And if you want a doctor
I’ll examine every, every precious inch of you

certainly doesn’t appear on paper to signal an exponential increase in salaciousness, but listening to (and watching) Cohen sing that sequence (beginning at 1:05) reveals an extraordinarily seductive invitation to conjoined carnality. Also, only listeners who know the original words (the vast majority of those in attendance if crowds at other shows are any indication) would be aware of the change, further enhancing the impact of the revised lyrics, which become a special gift from the singer to those individuals.

Cohen’s animated performance (he doesn’t stop moving even when he withdraws to the shadows to listen to the solo by Dino Soldo) is well supported not only by his musicians but also by the appreciative, responsive New York audience.

There is much more, but most observations I could make are destined to be rendered superfluous once readers view the video. I will note, however, that, as previously pointed out in The Two Rules For An Outrageously Wonderful Relationship With A Woman, the lyrics of “I’m Your Man” are not an expression of a man overwhelming a woman with the goal of coital rapture; instead, the words of the song are an expression of a man offering a woman an entirely different proposition, “Whatever you ask, I’ll never refuse” and meaning it – with the goal of coital rapture.