Lhasa De Sela, the Montreal singer-songwriter, died at age 37 on Jan. 1, 2010 less than two years after being diagnosed with breast cancer.
Born to a Mexican father and American mother, she spent her childhood traveling across the U.S. and Mexico in a schoolbus with her family before settling in Montreal at age 19.
She produced songs in Spanish, English, and French, developing a loyal, world-wide following as well as winning an ADISQ award for best world music album in 1997 and a Juno in the same category in 1998.
Her voice, style, and compositions are evocative and, for many of us, resonate intensely on an emotional level.
Because she was discreet about her illness, many fans, including myself, are learning only belatedly of her death.
She is missed.
Lhasa De Sela – Who By Fire (Montreal International Jazz Festival 2008)
I have found few cinematic phenomena to be more gratifying than well-scripted spontaneity.
And, of the multitude of scenes exemplifying that trait, the most heartwarming and most reliably satisfying, it seems to me, are those sequences which feature a group of cast members breaking into an informal, joyous sing-along, dance-along, or sing-&-dance-along, suffusing the moment with warmth, affection, and good will.
Defining The Quasi-Spontaneous Musical Jubilation En Masse
Essential Criteria
The scene must
Involve at least three cast members (and preferably more) who each participate whole-heartedly in singing, dancing, or both
Depend on spontaneity. At the least, the singing/dancing is unscheduled. (E.g., in Sister Act, the choir’s performances would not be eligible; if the nuns had broken into a retro-disco sequence during vespers, however, that might be eligible)
Consist of a discrete episode featuring a single song
Bond the participants
Induce joyfulness in the participants and the audience
Exclusionary Criteria
The scene cannot
Occur in a musical (e.g., Moulin Rouge, Chicago, Rent), any other film that has music as its core (e.g., Woodstock), or a movie that is a vehicle for the stars to sing (e.g., several of the Elvis Presley movies and Everyone Says I Love You) unless the scene takes place outside that structure (see #2 of “Essential Criteria” above)
Have as its motivation the enjoyment of or requirements by non-participants. The premise must be that the singing/dancing is done for the participants own enjoyment. (E.g., the “Camptown Ladies” scene in Blazing Saddles is performed at the demand of the foreman, not for the pleasure of the singers)
Involve participants who are clearly fantasy creatures (e.g., Willie Wonka and animated cartoons)
The Addition To The Pantheon Of Quasi-Spontaneous Musical Jubilations En Masse
And, in that previous post, I listed four prime specimens found in these excellent movies:
My Best Friend’s Wedding
The Big Chill
Wayne’s World
Almost Famous
To this esteemed group, I now add an episode from the classic 1966 John Hughes film, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. One of the many experiences Ferris experiences in his day off from school is his participation in the Von Steuben Day Parade, during which the entire parade and many of the spectators combine efforts in a Quasi-Spontaneous Musical Jubilation En Masse anchored by Ferris singing “Twist and Shout:”
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – Twist And Shout
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With all respect to Immanuel Kant, the fundamental Categorical Imperative is that it is imperative to create categories [↩]
So we struggle and we stagger down the snakes and up the ladder
to the tower where the blessed hours chime [emphasis mine]
– From “Closing Time” by Leonard Cohen
Why Is Leonard Cohen Singing About Snakes And Ladders?
Before going further, I will stipulate that for a large proportion of the population the question on which this post is based is superfluous. I may be, in fact, the only individual who is both fascinated with the lyrics of Leonard Cohen and (until recently) unaware of the origins of this specific fragment of those lyrics – namely, “down the snakes and up the ladder.” Nonetheless, on the chance that there may be one or two others in that category, I blog onward.
This excerpt from the albertnoonan video of “Closing Time” from the Leonard Cohen July 11, 2009 Weybridge concert begins just before Cohen sings “down the snakes and up the ladder.”
Leonard Cohen – Closing Time (Weybridge, July 11, 2009)
What’s Leonard Cohen’s Game?
The short answer to the question of the origins of the lyrics, as anyone who spent his or her childhood years in a British-speaking (rather than American-speaking) region knows, is the children’s name first called – and in the UK, still called – Snakes and Ladders.
The confusion arises from those always troublesome American colonies now calling themselves the United States, where the game became known as Chutes and Ladders.
In the Milton Bradley game sold in the US, snakes
… have been replaced by chutes, AKA playground slides.
Now, a psychiatrist trained at a psychoanalytically oriented institute might well comment that there are certain implications of a changing a game sporting phallic snakes to one featuring yonic chutes.
Consider it so commented.
But there is, inevitably, more.
The Morality Play
This may be another “everybody knows” thing that was a revelation to me only because my childhood toys included neither Chutes and Ladders or Snakes and Ladders.1 In any case, I was unaware of the game’s blatant moral didacticism.
The V&A Museum Site (which is also the source of the image of the 1920s Snakes and Ladder game pictured earlier in this post) includes this description of the game:
Snakes and Ladders has been a favourite race game in Britain for over 100 years. When it was originally devised Snakes and Ladders was a moral game with virtues in the shape of the ladders, allowing the players to reach heaven quickly, while the vices, in the shape of snakes, forced the player back down. Snakes and Ladders is probably based upon a very old Indian game called Moksha-Patamu, which was used for religious instruction and had 12 vices but only 4 virtues. According to Hindu teaching, good and evil exist side by side in man: but only virtuous acts – represented by the ladders – will shorten the soul’s journey through a series of incarnations to the state of ultimate perfection. Human wrongdoing symbolised by the head of the snake leads to reincarnation in a lower, animal form.
Wikipedia’s (Wikipedia is also the source of the illustration of a 1954 Chutes and Ladders game show previously) description of the Chutes and Ladders version follows:
The most widely known edition of Snakes and Ladders in the United States is Chutes and Ladders from Milton Bradley (which was purchased by the game’s current distributor Hasbro). It is played on a 10×10 board, and players advance their pieces according to a spinner rather than a die. The theme of the board design is playground equipment–children climb ladders to go down chutes. The artwork on the board teaches a morality lesson, the squares on the bottom of the ladders show a child doing a good or sensible deed and at the top of the ladder there is an image of the child enjoying the reward. At the top of the chutes, there are pictures of children engaging in mischievous or foolish behavior and the images on the bottom show the child suffering the consequences.
Leonard Cohen Has His Way With Words
The image below is a page from an early draft of “Closing Time” with the three sections containing “down the snakes and up the ladder” in boxes (added by me):
For convenience, a printed version of the handwritten words follows with the three sections containing “down the snakes and up the ladder” emboldened (by me):
We’re (broken) lonely & we’re frantic
& the cider’s laced with acid
and the holy spirit’s crying, Where’s the beef?
it’s summer & we’re naked
and the very night is fragrant
with the precious distillations of relief and I follow my companion
down the snakes & up the ladder
to the tower where the rescued hours chime
and she (holds) calls me & I dance her
down the snakes & up the ladder
to the tower where the rescued hours chime
and I hold her & I dancer
down the snakes & up the ladder
to the tower when the lonely (rescued) hours chime
we’re safely at the other side of closing time
and I watch my baby growing old
the shadow on her shades of gold
the fiddler gay & the wind is cold
and one by one our kisses sold
to closing time
and the planets watch us growing
In a song like “Closing Time,” rife with cunningly memorable phrases (e.g., the Johnnie Walker wisdom running high, all the women tear their blouses off and the men they dance on the polka-dots, and I swear it happened just like this: a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss, the place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night, busted in the blinding lights of closing time, and the Holy Spirit’s crying, “Where’s the beef?”), the object of our attention today,
So we struggle and we stagger down the snakes and up the ladder
to the tower where the blessed hours chime [emphasis mine]
is just one more phrase that pays, easily lost in the richly laden lyrics.
Which is why I take it upon myself to point out that …
Leonard Cohen Struggles And Staggers Within A Mythic Perspective
The imagery evoked by these lines is precisely on point (especially in the final version compared to the earlier iterations), not only within the context of the song but also as its own free-standing, compact, powerful portrayal of individuals contending together, however transiently, in a desperate effort to claim a bit of happiness within the restraints of their self-imposed intrapsychic restrictions, the absolute limitations imposed by time, and the explicit and implicit restrictions of social mores.
And that’s how Leonard Cohen has fashioned a few words alluding to a Canadian child’s game into a distinctively serviceable contemporary version of the Sisyphus myth.
Just another day in the iconic singer-songwriter biz.
Credit Due Department: I was first informed of the existence of the Canadian/British version of the game, Snakes and Ladders, by bridger15
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I should point out that the reason I didn’t have time to play such games was that I was too busy attending various church services where our morality lessons were served straight up – usually in the form of sermons describing the grotesque punishments of an eternity spent in hell – rather than disguised as a leisure activity. Snakes and Ladders? We didn’t need no stinking Snakes and Ladders. [↩]
Video Of Leonard Cohen USA Concert Highlights Released
Heck Of A Guy proudly announces the release today of
Thanks, Leonard Cohen, For Coming To The USA
A video offered in appreciation of
Leonard Cohen’s Fall 2009 US Tour
and in celebration of the
2008-2009 Leonard Cohen World Tour,
a labor born of catastrophe and betrayal
that became a triumph of music and spirit
Taking A Look At The Leonard Cohen Fall 2009 USA Tour
Thanks, Leonard Cohen, For Coming To The USA is a ten minute video with photo and YouTube highlights focusing on the Fall 2009 Leonard Cohen concert series that began in Fort Lauderdale and concluded in San Jose, California. Additional scenes track back to the beginning of the Tour and Cohen’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame and extends to the 2010 iteration of the Tour and beyond.
The soundtrack includes segments from “First We Take Manhattan” and “Closing Time” bracketing “Democracy Is Coming To The USA,” the final song at the final concert of the USA Tour.
View Thanks, Leonard Cohen, For Coming To The USA
Previous Leonard Cohen World Tour Video Commemorations
The Original Heck Of A Guy Dear Leonard Cohen – Thanks For The Tour. I Hope It Was Good For You, Too commemorative video celebration of the first 14 months of the 2008-2009 World Tour can be viewed at Thanks For The Tour. A 2nd video, focusing on the Summer 2009 concerts can be seen at Thanks Again For The Tour – The Encore Video.
The Gray-haired, Gravel-voiced Grandee Of Graciousness
I confess to being unaware of the most elemental musicological knowledge, I am ignorant of the basics of songwriting, and I haven’t a clue about iconicity. I do, however, know graciousness when I’m overwhelmed by it.
And, Leonard Cohen may be the most aggressively gracious person on the planet.
The Continued Tale Of Roses, Stethoscopes, Boxing Gloves, Polka-dot Blouses, A Great French Restaurant, Icons, Leonard Cohen, And, Most Of All, Graciousness
The preceding post, Gracious, That’s Leonard Cohen, included three episodes in which Leonard Cohen received roses from fans. Writing in response to the first of those, Adrian du Plessis, business manager for Allison Crowe, offers an account of a rose offered to another icon, Bob Dylan:
Your post on the fate of the long stem rose at Leonard Cohen’s Nashville concert brings to mind a very different experience some thirty years ago.
In 1978, I had my first opportunity to go to a Bob Dylan concert. My girlfriend and I were devotees, and camped out for over a day/night, as was the custom in those days, in order to get front row centre seats for Dylan in Vancouver. Lori brought a long stem rose and placed it on the stage. Now, Dylan, upon sighting the rose, picked it up, and tossed it away, underarm, as if clearing garbage from the stage. I know Lori was hurt by this, and it didn’t impress me, either! Of course, the concert itself was so crappy, and such indifference to music and audience I’ve rarely witnessed from a performer. It was one of the worst shows in my life – and, so, the rose indignity became a symbolic footnote.
It is certainly nice to see an artist/band, who appreciates the gesture and beauty.
One cannot, of course, pretend to make a valid comparison between any aspect of the stage manners of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen by cherry picking incidents from across their long-ranging careers. For all I know, Dylan’s fans may be able to document any number of demonstrations of high courtesy on his part. And, in fact, I juxtapose Dylan’s treatment of the rose from a fan with Cohen’s reactions in similar circumstances only because of its convenience (thanks to Adrian’s volunteering of the incident) and the poignancy it imparts.
Moreover, I could easily enough find far more egregious violations of fans’ loyalty and adoration by musical stars – as well as movie and TV stars, sports stars, … .1
In fact, Dylan’s behavior in this specific case is more cavalier than malignant – which makes it, from my perspective, more effective as a point of comparison to Cohen’s actions.
There Shall Be Showers Of Blessings – And Polka Dots
Closing Time - San Jose with blouse in upper right being flung to stage
Yeah the women tear their blouses off
and the men they dance on the polka-dots From “Closing Time” by Leonard Cohen
Yes, what you see is what happened – a fusillade of feminine apparel is launched from the audience onto the stage, whoops are whooped, the legendarily unflappable Leonard Cohen loses his place in the song (1:18), and, in general, a good time is apparently had by all.
Leonard Cohen – Closing Time (San Jose, 10/13/2009)
I confess that I’m not so hot myself about the concept of thrusting flowers, polka dot blouses, hotel room keys, stethoscopes, undergarments, etc on stage. Further, I am not a proponent of unsolicited singalongs, shouted conversations between a star and those in attendance, and other audience participation in concerts beyond well-timed applause and the occasional, warranted standing ovation.2
I am, however, quite fond of many of the folks who take part in such shenanigans at Leonard Cohen concerts so I find my attitude has modulated to something akin to that of a chef I saw interviewed on TV who, when asked by the reporter why his restaurant prepared a flaming dessert at table-side rather than using the far more efficient method of cooking it in the kitchen, replied “Customers like it, and it doesn’t hurt the food much.”
Such endeavors also make, I admit, for interesting and popular Heck Of A Guy postings.
My own confessions aside, there is some evidence that Cohen has not always been an enthusiastic supporter of audience behaviors that could interfere with his presentation. Consider this excerpt from the Bird On A Wire Documentary in which a sarcastic but ultimately forgiving Leonard Cohen makes it clear he would prefer not to compete with self-congratulatory applause from the audience triggered by their recognition of the song he has started.3
Leonard Cohen admonishing concert audience
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Now, Leonard Cohen is, as we know, one complex dude, so it’s not surprising to find
… there is also the Leonard Cohen who encourages his concert friends to take part in Hootenanny rituals. Kleeble reports in leonardcohenforum that “my most vivid memory of those days is standing on my seat, singing and clapping along to “You Are My Sunshine” at Manchester (Free Trade Hall I think) in 1974.”4
My point is that Leonard Cohen, known as a perfectionist and a low-amplitude but intensely serious control freak when it comes to the presentation of his concerts, is likely to harbor ambivalent feelings regarding potentially disrupting behaviors – like, oh I don’t know – being bombarded by enough blouses to stock a medium sized thrift store.
But heck, the notion of graciousness is demonstrating kindness and generosity of spirit, especially in situations in which others don’t behave as one would prefer or as one would oneself behave. It requires no self-awareness, discernment, or effort to bask in entropic empathy with ones characterologic clones. The idea of graciousness connotes going more than halfway toward another person’s point of view to understand that perspective and respond with respect and humanity.
I offer an illustrative digression:
Leonard Cohen And The Waiters At Le Francais
I am not the only visitor to Le Francais (now lamentably closed) in suburban Chicago who rated it the best of restaurants. It was renowned for its great food and wines, achieving a five-star Mobil rating, numerous five Diamond awards, and accolades from periodicals that dealt with food and eateries. Bon Appetit magazine, in fact, designated it the Best Restaurant in the Nation in 1985. What I remember most poignantly, however, is not the signature lobster ravioli appetizer or the classic dark chocolate souffle with warm crème anglaise but the waiters who refused to let a customer commit an embarrassing error or feel uncomfortable. When one grows up in the Ozarks in a town where haute cuisine means the chicken-fried steak at the local truck stop, dining at a world-class restaurant featuring Vietnamese-tinged versions of classic French dishes can be an intimidating experience. Not so at Le Francais. From dozens of exemplars I’ve collected in my adventures there, I offer two instances:
Instance #1: At the appropriate moment in the meal, the waiter asked if I would like to order a liqueur for myself and my guests. I responded in the affirmative and immediately discovered that the gyrus of my brain responsible for storing names of liqueur had gone tabula rasa on me, a situation that held great potential for the future but was discomforting at that time as a table full of folks I hoped to impress awaited my decision. The waiter, whom I had never met before that night, picked up on my impending panic and without a discernible pause in his spiel, began reciting, as though it were the restaurant’s custom (it wasn’t), the appellations and descriptions of every liqueur in their stock, finally ending with an obscure selection he announced, in tones indicating that he had delved deeply into his vast knowledge of liqueurs to come up with a specimen that might interest a gentleman of my particular taste and evident sagacity, “might especially appeal to [me].”
It was grand.
The liqueur was good, too.
Instance #2: The entrées for our party of four were placed on the table beneath silver domes. When the waiter turned to summon other staff to effect the ritual of simultaneously removing all of the domes, one of my guests, unaware of the practice, began to take the dome off his food himself. The waiter noticed and with mock indignation warned him that “unless you can show me your union card, sir, you cannot remove that dome,” not only precluding embarrassment on the part of my guest but actually improving the mood of an already enjoyable moment.
Leonard Cohen would have been a great waiter at that great restaurant.
Leonard Cohen’s Polka Dot Manifesto
The punchline to this two-post essay is Leonard Cohen’s eight-line written response to the bombardment of blouses in San Jose.
Leonard Cohen sent this message to LeonardCohenForum a week or two after the concert:
Dear Jarkko
Please thank all our friends
for the beautiful shower of polka dots
that we danced upon
in San Jose and over the many years before
when our step was not so high
With deep appreciation
Leonard
I can’t find an official count, but I suspect few other stars send thank-notes for specific gestures by fans.
More significantly, I suspect that of those stars who are moved by silly, sweet gestures by fans to write thank-yous, those that take the time and effort (assuming they have the ability) to inscribe an elegantly poetic note of appreciation can be counted not just on one hand but on one finger of one hand.
In one section of “Leonard Cohen: Hallelujah: A New Biography,” author Tim Footman compares Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. It is his assessment that
… it will be Dylan’s music, rather than Cohen’s, that is seen as defining the second half of the 20th century.5
Footman then goes on to discuss the relationship of both men to their fans, ending the Dylan Vs Cohen discussion with this conclusion:
And Cohen? Well, Cohen is loved. And Cohen – and surely Dylan as well – knows which is more important.6
And, all I can add to that is, as we say back home in the Ozarks, gracious.
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Leonard Cohen has himself, especially at the start of his career, occasionally met diagnostic criteria for what we shrinks might diagnose as “acting like a jerk.” He once, for example, walked off stage in the middle of a concert and has had several confrontations with audience members. This history makes his current decency even more impressive [↩]
Standing ovations have, all too often these days, degenerated into an obligatory response which signifies little other than the end of a performance – which may well be worth commemorating. [↩]
For more on audience expectations from other artists, including Ray Charles, Madonna, Prince, Peter, Paul, & Mary, and others, see Cohen Concert Comportment [↩]
A Tale Of Roses, Stethoscopes, Boxing Gloves, Polka-dot Blouses, A Great French Restaurant, Icons, Leonard Cohen, And, Most Of All, Graciousness
This story requires, the way I tell it, significant elaboration (at least two posts worth), but those readers who wend their way through my baroque prose to the end will, I believe, find their efforts well compensated.
As one might expect, given the preceding introduction, some background is required.
The War Of The Roses
At the November 5, 2009 Leonard Cohen concert in Nashville, bridger15 placed a rose onstage.
From bridger15 posting at LeonardCohenForum: At 1.25, LC [Leonard Cohen] picks up a long stem rose with attached small flags of Canada, US and the State of Tennessee that I had placed on the stage apron prior to the beginning of the song. LC places it on the drum riser as he often does with gifts.
The video below automatically begins at 1:25.
Leonard Cohen, Nashville TPAC, Nov 5, 2009, Everybody Knows
From bridger15 posting at LeonardCohenForum, I Tried to Leave You: At 5.20, Raphael starts his solo and fails to catch one of his sticks. Roscoe Beck presents him with my long stem rose that LC had placed on the drum riser earlier.
The video below automatically begins at 5:20.
Leonard Cohen, Nashville TPAC, Nov 5, 2009, I Tried to Leave You
Next, The Roses Of Leonard Cohen offers the report by Noelle McCarthy on the fate of roses hurled onto the stage occupied by Cohen at the Vector Arena in New Zealand1:
After one of his [Cohen] approximately 36 encores, a woman in the front row reached under her seat and threw a bunch of flowers at Leonard Cohen (he got knickers as well I think; obviously I am not the only one who believes he’s still Got It). Off he skipped away, off stage, carrying the lovely bouquet with him.
I was sitting in a spot where I could see into one of the wings, and I watched him there, on-side of stage, pause, and bury his nose in the flowers. Leonard Cohen literally stopped and smelled the roses. And then came back and did what seemed like another 10 encores, and sent us all home happy, feeling more like members of a particularly blessed, joyous, literate congregation than punters at a gig.
Watching him do that did more for my resolve to get what enjoyment I can out of life, while I can, than any self-help manual ever will.
There are many more examples of Leonard Cohen’s responses to flowers laid (sometimes literally) at his feet, but for now I’ll end this series with an episode that deserves a far more elegant appellation than the one I’ve cavalierly provided: The Leonard Cohen Moonwalk With Rose Sequence(the video starts just before the pertinent sequence):
For the record, other materials are also bestowed on Leonard Cohen – boxing gloves and stethoscopes, for example:2
Next
The sequel to this post will begin with another rose offered to another musical icon – with profoundly different consequences – and will end with an episode of classy but tender graciousness. Stay tuned.
3. To appeal to the younger population – and show off his skills as a ventriloquist, Leonard Cohen will begin using a hand puppet for song introductions and commentary.
What’s going on here? Why is the puppet a frog? We need a minkey!!!
Edit – and if you can’t find a minkey ( ) a monkey will do.
For those not proficient in the Cohen fan community traditions, conventions, and mores, “monkey” (and, for that matter, “minkey”) here refers to Fred or a reasonable representation of Fred, the Tour mascot1 pictured below in San Diego:2
Fearing the misunderstanding of my role implicit in MaryB‘s note may be widespread, I am repeating the explanation of the restrictions under which I operate, as well as the story behind the monkey’s loss of this prime role despite his popularity as the Tour’s emblematic small animal, that I originally published in LeonardCohenForum:
Well, I can only portray the future as it is revealed unto me – it’s not as though I can just make up this stuff.
It appears, however, that in the future the monkey goes through a prima donna phase (that happily proves to be transient). Nonetheless, the frog will be chosen when contract negotiations break down between the monkey and Cohen’s organization over “artistic differences” with the monkey refusing to “play some kind of joke character” and insisting on rewrite privileges. After an extended effort, I did manage to envision an image of the monkey’s audition which illustrates the problems.
Later, the monkey explains, in a MOJO interview with Sylvie Simmons, that “I don’t know what happened. It was as if someone was putting words in my mouth.”
Again, I can only see through the mists and report what appears before me. Attempting to influence future events would be a betrayal of my responsibility. As the timeless aphorism notes,
Monkey see
Monkey blog
For the record, I account myself a Friend Of Fred and am saddened to have foreseen his loss of this future opportunity; I am, however, heartened by the knowledge that this will prove only a temporary setback in Fred’s career path.
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Why a monkey? Because of the lyrics from Leonard Cohen’s “First We Take Manhattan”":
And I thank you for those items that you sent me
The monkey and the plywood violin
I practiced every night, now I’m ready
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
Apparently, a plywood violin is a less attractive option on the spectrum of mascots [↩]
The photo of Fred in San Diego was taken by – yep, you got it – The Monkey (apparently with a delayed shutter) and posted at LeonardCohenForum [↩]
In this 1967 film, Leonard Cohen reads and re-reads a prose poem from his novel “Beautiful Losers” as diverse photographs flash by, juxtaposing word and image for a different effect each time. Short film directed by Josef Reeve included as a DVD bonus on “Ladies and Gentleman… Mr Leonard Cohen (The National Film Board of Canada, 2006).
A prose poem read by Leonard Cohen from his novel Beautiful Losers to the accompaniment of diverse photographs and other illustrations. While the poet reads, the camera moves in and out of the pictures, often with surrealistic effect. He reads four times; each time the emotional effect is different because of his rendition or the accompanying visuals.
Angel
The YouTube description of Angel follows:
A man, a woman and a dog take turns donning wings in this 1966 experimental film that both mocks and embodies the spirit of its decade. Featuring music and an uncredited appearance by Leonard Cohen. Short film directed by Derek May included as a DVD bonus on “Ladies and Gentleman… Mr Leonard Cohen” (The National Film Board of Canada, 2006).
This is a film about a young man, a girl and a dog, in which the visuals are overexposed or, more technically, given a high contrast. The girl tries to fly with wings more symbolic than practical; the young man and the dog make similar attempts. Music by poet Leonard Cohen, played by The Stormy Clovers.
The film features music by Leonard Cohen, performed by The Stormy Clovers. Awards for the film included the Genie Award in the arts and experimental category.
French Farrago Falls Short Of Aspirations Of Grandeur But Succeeds As Pulpit For Cohen
This two-part video originally broadcast on French TV (identified in the YouTube introduction as “most probably made during the 1993 tour” and on the YouTube video title as “1991 French TV report” but more likely the 1992 Megamix program shown on the French M6 Network1 ) is a 17 minute, 19 second pastiche that includes segments of an interview with Leonard Cohen, taped musical performances by Cohen (with backup singers, Perla Batalla, and Julie Christensen), a recording of Cohen’s recitation of “The Genius” from “The Spice-Box of Earth,”2 home movies of Cohen’s childhood (featuring a young Leonard Cohen hell-bent on high velocity skiing and tricycle riding), views of Paris, Manhattan, and Berlin, portions of music videos, scenes from the offices of the French music magazine Les Inrockuptibles, a discussion of the I’m Your Fan tribute album by Christian Fevret of that periodical, fragments from documentary films featuring Leonard Cohen, and a cover of “Lovers, Lovers, Lovers” by Ian McCulloch.
From my perspective, the structure of the program is as problematic as its massive, disparate content. The interweaving and overlapping of portions of musical performances with fractions of interviews detracts from both components. And some of the self-consciously stylistic elements, such as the series of quick cuts between Cohen walking into the studio and through the studio’s hall to the interview room and the parallel takes of him walking through a hallway in the Dance Me To The End Of Love video are too banal to be evocative.
Leonard Cohen walking to interview (left) and in music video (right)
Nonetheless, many of the individual components, such as the reading of the poem and the songs themselves, are worthwhile and, as I’ve pointed out before, Leonard Cohen gives good interview.
During this video, Cohen talks about the importance of his childhood spent under the care of his “kind,” Jewish parents, his view of songwriting a difficult task that keeps his efforts “fully employed,” the significance of his new-found (at the time of this interview) technique of writing songs with a synthesizer rather than, as had previously been the case, with a guitar, the robbery of the distinctiveness of cities by the automobile, and the assumption of of ones songs by a new generation of musicians as a gratifying continuation of the “apocalyptic dance.”
He also offers, perhaps at the interviewer’s specific request, a variation of his classic explanation of why he is not a pessimist:
“I don’t consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin.
Especially striking are his conclusion that public expression lags behind and is less important than private experience and his well articulated conviction that art is an inadequate if popular substitute for religion.3
Diamonds In The Mine describes the 1992 Megamix show on Network M6, France as “TV spot looking at I’m Your Fan. It includes an interview with Leonard in Paris. Ian Mc Culloch sings Lover, Lover, Lover and Christian Fevret explains the genesis of the 1991 tribute LP I’m your Fan.” [↩]
I am reminded of congruent notions expressed by psychoanalytic thinkers in the 1950s and 1960s who warned that psychoanalysis was not a replacement for religion. [↩]
Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox: In interviews through the years, Leonard Cohen has mentioned a handful of specific songs he favors. Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox is a Heck Of A Guy feature playing those tunes for your edification and entertainment.
Suzanne Cover Gives Leonard Cohen A Good Feeling
This excerpt from Porridge? Lozenge? Syringe? by Adrian Deevoy (The Q Magazine, 1991), describes a conversation taking place between the author and Cohen while music from the tribute album, I’m Your Fan, plays in the background:
As That Petrol Emotion launch into Stories Of The Street, he [Leonard Cohen] finally cracks. “Hey, we’re really going to have to take this down. It’s such an exquisite distraction.” He turns the volume right down. “We’ll try it as background music, although my guess is that it’ll make it more tantalising.” All goes swimmingly until the opening phrases of Suzanne stop Cohen in his tracks. “Who’s singing this?” he asks.
It is Geoffrey Oreyama, who is signed to Peter Gabriel’s Real World label. Cohen squints toward the hi-fi.
“When you hear a guy singing a song like this, which you wrote before he was born, it gives you a good feeling.” He is genuinely choked with emotion. He takes a deep breath. “This isn’t a casual moment for me.”
Geoffrey Oreyama
Oreyama is an Ugandan musician who sings in Swahili and Acholi as well as French and English.
The Video
The audio track of this video is, indeed, Geoffrey Oreyama’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne” from the I’m Your Fan album. The video, however, consists of scenes from Final Fantasy.1 I have no information about and am unwilling to even speculate on Leonard Cohen’s assessment of Final Fantasy.
Other Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox Posts
All posts featured in the Heck Of A Guy Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox series can be found at the end of the Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox Page.
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Wikipedia provides this description of Final Fantasy: Final Fantasy is a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, and is developed and owned by Square Enix (formerly Squaresoft). The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and science-fantasy console role-playing games (RPGs), but includes motion pictures, anime, printed media, and other merchandise. The series began in 1987 as an eponymous video game developed to save Square from bankruptcy; the game was a success and spawned sequels. The video game series has since branched into other genres such as tactical role-playing, massively multiplayer online role-playing, and racing. Although most Final Fantasy installments are independent stories with various different settings and main characters, they feature common elements that define the franchise. Such recurring elements include plot themes, character names, and game mechanics. Plots center on a group of heroes battling a great evil while exploring the characters’ internal struggles and relationships. Character names are often derived from the history, languages, and mythologies of cultures worldwide. The series has been commercially and critically successful; it is Square Enix’s best selling video game franchise, with more than 85 million units sold, and one of the best-selling video game franchises. Second to Final Fantasy among Square Enix franchises is Dragon Quest. It was awarded a star on the Walk of Game in 2006, and holds seven Guinness World Records in the Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition 2008. The series is well known for its innovation, visuals, and music, such as the inclusion of full motion videos, photo-realistic character models, and orchestrated music by Nobuo Uematsu. Final Fantasy has been a driving force in the video game industry. The video game series has affected Square’s business practices and its relationships with other video game developers. It has also introduced many features now common in console RPGs and has been credited with helping to popularize RPGs in markets outside Japan. [↩]
Heck Of A Guy offers, with assistance from Randy Newman and Etta James, the writer and performer, respectively, of "You Can Leave Your Hat On," a look at Leonard Cohen As Hunk.
has become the second Heck Of A Guy Leonard Cohen video to pass 10,000 views.
For details about this video and the often overlooked but outstanding song on which it is based, see the section under the heading, Do I Have To Dance All Night Film Festival in the far right column of this page.
The video montage of favorite scenes featuring the singer-songwriter, poet, and icon offered in celebration of Leonard Cohen's 75th birthday, September 21, 2009 garnered its 10,000th YouTube viewing on May 23, 2010.
The Cohen Fandemic
Endemic for decades in areas such as Canada, Norway, Poland, and France, Leonard Cohen Fan Syndrome has become a world-wide epidemic in the past 2 years, spread by the Leonard Cohen World Tour and abetted by proselyting carriers despite efforts by authorities to quarantine these individuals at LeonardCohenForum.
Diagnostic Criteria
Based on the observations of DrHGuy, standardized criteria for the pertinent Axis II diagnosis are now available at
Danger Signs
In addition to the formal medical description of this diagnosis, Heck Of A Guy has also compiled a list of the aberrant behaviors which indicate one is at high risk for being a full-fledged fan of Leonard Cohen. These signs and symptoms can be found at
Also see Leonard Cohen Search, a Leonard Cohen-focused Custom Search Engine & Reference Index
And We’re Still Making Love In My Secret Life – Julie’s Story & Video
... I never had a chance. I was - and this is the only word that fits - smitten. I still am.
She was smart and quick-witted, although it would take me 3 years to recognize that she was, in fact, much smarter than me, and then another 2 years to forgive her for that. She was also good-
looking and unabashedly sexy.
And, we fell madly, irredeemably, unflinchingly in love.
Complementing the unlikely story of how Julie and I met, fell in love, and - 2 husbands, 1 wife, and 2 careers later - spent an outrageously wonderful 20 years together before her death in 1999, a video, set to the poignant "In My Secret Life" by Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson, is now available that evokes the role Julie, who died 10 years ago, continues to play in my life.
The written account of the story (think When Harry Met Sally meets Waiting For Godot) starts, appropriately, at This Is How A Love Story Began
Now, Another Other Leonard Cohen Album, the second collection of unreleased Leonard Cohen songs joins the popular The Other Leonard Cohen Album to offer fans of the iconic singer-songwriter a total of 3 CDs of musical treats. Another Other Leonard Cohen Album includes the following tracks plus liner notes by Sylvie Simmons.
1. Je Veux Vivre Tout Seual
2. Kevin Barry
3. Die Gedanken Sind Frei
4. Store Room
5. As Time Goes By
6. Don’t Go Home with Your Hard-on
7. Blessed is the Memory
8. Silent Night
9. Dead Song
10. Another Saturday Night
11. Ballad of the Absent Mare
12. Guerrero
13. The Butcher
14. Un As Der Rebbe Singt
15. Song to the Machines
16. If It Be Your Will
17. Thirsty for the Kiss
18. A Thousand Kisses Deep
19. I Tried To Leave You
20. Whither Thou Goest
21. Mr Cohen Must Be Going
Track List: Vol 1
1. Feels So Good (The Other Blues Song)
2. Book Of Longing
3. The Darkness
4. Puppets
5. Lullaby
6. Do I Have to Dance All Night (1976)
7. Blues By The Jews
Track List: Vol 2
1. Red River Valley
2. Never Got To Love You (Duet with Anjani)
3. Can't Help Falling In Love
4. Ride Around
5. The Union Makes Us Strong
6. We Shall Not Be Moved
7. To Love Somebody
8. The Hypnotist (Poem)
9. Chelsea Hotel #1
10. There's No Reason Why You Should Remember Me
11. Streets Of Laredo
12. Do I Have To Dance All Night (1980)
Heck Of A Guy offers 3 videos of clips and photos from The Leonard Cohen World Tour:
1. The Original Heck Of A Guy Dear Leonard Cohen - Thanks For The Tour. I Hope It Was Good For You, Too. Video Celebration Of The First 14 Months Of The 2008-2009 World Tour can be viewed at Thanks For The Tour
"Do I Have To Dance All Night" was performed many times in concerts but was never released in the US.
As part of my crusade to popularize this song, I've cobbled together 2 videos - one for the semi-funky 1976 version with Laura Branigan and one for the 1980 more gypsy, less disco version - that kinda sorta fit the music.
Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen had a fling in the 1960s that, for unspecified reasons, was short-lived, with Cohen instigating the parting.
It was then and is now a complex connection. In 1988, Cohen said, I'm still very friendly with Joni - I had dinner with her before the tour, and I have the same admiration for her as you do. But I think it was Noel Harrison who came up to me in the LA Troubadour and said "How do you like living with Beethoven?"
) a monkey will do.
