Sunday, April 19, 2009
Touched your perfect body with their minds
Every day is a revelation, even in a small way. I discovered the above Leonard Cohen song -- and Nina Simone's version of it -- just today for the first time, thanks to Tom Schnabel's show on KCRW.
Anyone who knows me a little knows that I'm a fan of Nina Simone; they may not know how much her voice and her story break my heart just a little every time I hear one of her recordings.
I can't call myself a fan of Cohen because I really don't know enough of his music. A year or so ago I tried watching that recent documentary, I'm Your Man, but frankly was so disinterested after thirty or forty minutes that I turned it off. It also didn't help that Nick Cave's singing completely got on my nerves, and I'm not enough of a fan of any of the Wainwrights to be riveted by them either. I may need to try just listening to some of Cohen's original material.
Certain readers may be tired of the triteness of it, but I do admit to loving Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah, which I was only introduced to via the recent German film Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei (The Edukators), which I liked quite a lot.
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that you can trust her
For she's touched your perfect body with her mind
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Okay, I may be one of those who has called "Hallelujah" trite, but I was just cranky when I wrote that. I now feel I've touched the face of God (god) twice having seen Nina Simone a couple of times late in her career and then Leonard on Wednesday night. He is worth delving into. It too me a while, like 35 years, to become seduced by his words. At one point I thought he was morose, and then I thought he was too spot on with my own depression, and this week I saw him smile, prance, rejoice, look forward and back -- acknowledging his many demons that he will never fully tame but at peace with them too. And when he closed with "Democracy" (Is Coming to the U.S.A.), I knew it was worth my long journey to feel I finally could admire him.
Post a Comment