7. Everybody Knows (137.5 points, 11 votes)from I'm Your Man
Rufus Wainwright: https://goo.gl/dj69JtDon Henley: https://goo.gl/Sp4BB4Concrete Blonde: https://goo.gl/LnY0wS (<--hilariously overwrought video alert)
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Monday, 12 December 2016 03:03 (seven years ago) link
The rest will be up tonight. Sorry for the weird post timing and knuckle-dragging.
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Monday, 12 December 2016 19:16 (seven years ago) link
i'm enjoying it anyway!
― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson), Monday, 12 December 2016 19:24 (seven years ago) link
"everybody knows" contains at least like five perfect stanzas
― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson), Monday, 12 December 2016 19:25 (seven years ago) link
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8o32o7T5Q1qfirpxo1_500.gif
― banfred bann (wins), Monday, 12 December 2016 19:29 (seven years ago) link
Everybody knows the war is overEverybody knows the good guys lostEverybody knows the fight was fixedThe poor stay poor, the rich get richThat's how it goesEverybody knows
― I know hoes that know Ali Farka Toure (voodoo chili), Monday, 12 December 2016 20:49 (seven years ago) link
6. Suzanne (145 points, 12 votes, 2 #1 votes)from Songs of Leonard Cohen
Nina Simone: https://goo.gl/VHdgZiRoberta Flack: https://goo.gl/1TvLu2Francoise Hardy: https://goo.gl/3V1UAhJorane: https://goo.gl/hYhsJYNick Cave: https://goo.gl/8cmqwtJudy Collins: https://goo.gl/7EK5DOFairport Convention: https://goo.gl/lpw50yNana Mouskori: https://goo.gl/qiQOMLFabrizio de Andre: https://goo.gl/G27qPMPearls Before Swine: https://goo.gl/g788ef
Various Positions:
While in Montreal, Cohen met Suzanne Verdal, a dancer who was one of the inspirations for two poems that would appear in Parasites of Heaven in 1966. He first saw her dancing flamboyantly with her husband, sculptor Armand Vaillancourt, at a place in Montreal called Le Vieux Moulin. The first poem, beginning "Suzanne wears a leather coat, celebrates her dangerous beauty." The second, better-known poem is a version of his well-known song "Suzanne," from his first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen. He wrote the poem in the summer of 1965, although it lacked focus until Suzanne took Cohen to her loft near the St. Lawrence river. She remembered that they would spend hours talking by candlelight. Cohen maintained that they "were never lovers, but she gave me Constant Comment tea in a small moment of magic."Images in the song were drawn from a visit to the seventeenth-century La Chapelle de Bonsecours, the mariner's church in old Montreal with the figure of the golden virgin at the top with her body turned away from the city to bless the departing mariners. Inside the sanctuary, hanging from the ceiling of the triple-steepled church, are votive lights suspended in model ships. Yafa Lerner can remember walking with Cohen in September 1965 and his excitement about the poem.
Images in the song were drawn from a visit to the seventeenth-century La Chapelle de Bonsecours, the mariner's church in old Montreal with the figure of the golden virgin at the top with her body turned away from the city to bless the departing mariners. Inside the sanctuary, hanging from the ceiling of the triple-steepled church, are votive lights suspended in model ships. Yafa Lerner can remember walking with Cohen in September 1965 and his excitement about the poem.
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, 13 December 2016 02:43 (seven years ago) link
I wanted to link the Young Galaxy cover(!) but it's not on YouTube.
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, 13 December 2016 02:46 (seven years ago) link
5. So Long, Marianne (146 points, 13 votes)from Songs of Leonard Cohen
Bill Callahan: https://goo.gl/einRtzStraitjacket Fits: https://goo.gl/HdThC0scoring Werner Herzog's Fata Morgana: https://goo.gl/OJEDnV
Well, Marianne, it’s come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart, and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine.And you know that I’ve always loved you for your beauty and your wisdom, but I don’t need to say anything more about that because you know all about that. But now, I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road.
And you know that I’ve always loved you for your beauty and your wisdom, but I don’t need to say anything more about that because you know all about that. But now, I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road.
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, 13 December 2016 02:53 (seven years ago) link
4. Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye (159.5 points, 13 votes, 1 #1 vote)from Songs of Leonard Cohen
Lianne La Havas w/ Chilly Gonzales: https://goo.gl/SmoU1KJudy Collins: https://goo.gl/4ObX5yRoberta Flack: https://goo.gl/xRp9WI
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, 13 December 2016 03:04 (seven years ago) link
^ my #1. I hadn't listened to LC in eons, but on November 7th I woke up with "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" in my head and I spent all that morning playing his albums on Spotify. As we found out later that week, November 7th was the day LC died.
― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Tuesday, 13 December 2016 03:07 (seven years ago) link
3. Avalanche (167 points, 13 votes, 1 #1 vote)from Songs of Love and Hate
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: https://goo.gl/iJgjMzNick Cave, mk ii (2015): https://goo.gl/vDkXiA
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, 13 December 2016 03:21 (seven years ago) link
"hey, that's no way to say goodbye" would have been mu #1 had i voted
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 13 December 2016 03:37 (seven years ago) link
If anyone hasn't heard those Roberta Flack versions, they're really something
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, 13 December 2016 03:39 (seven years ago) link
i don't really have the musical vocabulary to describe this intelligently but there's something jarring, surprising about the refrain every time, like the way the pitch undulates makes it seem like there's at least one more line before the refrain comes but it just jumps right out at you
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 13 December 2016 03:39 (seven years ago) link
(talking about HTNWTSG)
“It’s best to have your eyes open – and to lighten up. I think that’s what enlightenment means: you’ve lightened up.”
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CeJPzh2XIAE2KCm.jpg
Thanks to all who commented, voted, and played along.
2. Tower of Song (171 points, 15 votes, 1 #1 vote)from I'm Your Man
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: https://goo.gl/nBDBb0Tom Jones: https://goo.gl/o1TkBjThe Jesus and Mary Chain: https://goo.gl/C6dPV8Ofer Golany (in Hebrew): https://goo.gl/DVTmec
I'm Your Man:
"Tower of Song" is about the hard, solitary, captive life of a writer (going so far as to evoke a concentration camp in the line "They"re moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track") but substitutes self-mockery for the usual self-indulgence of this type of song: he was still "crazy for love" but now he ached "in the places where (he) used to play" and in spite of all his hard work, none of it was of any significance to women, to God or even to pop-music posterity; his writing room was still a hundred floors below Hank Williams'.
"Tower of Song" is the keynote work on I'm Your Man. With it Cohen wanted to "make a definitive statement about this heroic enterprise of the craft of songwriting." In the early eighties he called the work "Raise My Voice in Song." His concern was with the aging songwriter, and the "necessity to transcend one's own failure by manifesting as the singer, as the songwriter." He had abandoned the song, but one night in Montreal he finished the lyrics and called an engineer and recorded it in one take with a toy synthesizer. Jennifer Warnes added some vocals and Cohen attempted some "repairs," which was difficult since there were only two tracks. It was initially felt that the quality was too poor and the musicality too thin. Warnes, however, "really placed it, putting it in the ironic perspective it needed; she was a real collaborator on it more than anything she ever did, and she's done wonderful things for me but this was the most wonderous thing she ever did for me...this doo-wop kind of perspective; she really illuminated the song with that contribution," Cohen said.(...)When he had written the song and completed the album, Cohen realized for the first time that he was an entertainer: "I never thought I was in showbiz. Until then, he had held on to the notion of being a writer. Now I know what I am. I'm not a novelist. I'm not the light of my generation. I'm not the spokesman for a new sensibility. I'm a songwriter living in L.A. and this is my record."
(...)
When he had written the song and completed the album, Cohen realized for the first time that he was an entertainer: "I never thought I was in showbiz. Until then, he had held on to the notion of being a writer. Now I know what I am. I'm not a novelist. I'm not the light of my generation. I'm not the spokesman for a new sensibility. I'm a songwriter living in L.A. and this is my record."
1. Famous Blue Raincoat (275 points, 18 votes, 7 #1 votes)from Songs of Love and Hate
Jennifer Warnes: https://goo.gl/avceB2Marissa Nadler: https://goo.gl/gyRZMEThe Handsome Family: https://goo.gl/mDHCNi
On the day he arrived in London, Cohen bought a typewriter, a green Olivetti 22, for £40, which would remain with him for years. He also acquired his "famous blue raincoat," a Burberry with epaulets. That, too, remained with him until it was stolen from a New York loft in 1968. In London, these objects acted as amulets, arming him to combat the world. His Olivetti broke only once in twenty-six years, when he threw the machine against the wall of his Montreal apartment after an unsuccessful attempt to type underwater. It was eventually repaired, and he used that Olivetti to type most of his best-known songs and novels.His raincoat was memorialized in the song "Famous Blue Raincoat," recorded on Songs of Love and Hate, his third album... The song has become a signature of sorts, the raincoat embodying Cohen's early image of mystery, travel, and adventure.
His raincoat was memorialized in the song "Famous Blue Raincoat," recorded on Songs of Love and Hate, his third album... The song has become a signature of sorts, the raincoat embodying Cohen's early image of mystery, travel, and adventure.
I'm Your Man (in reference to a concert at a mental hospital):
There appeared to be quite a few Leonard Cohen fans in the audience. One called out a request for "Famous Blue Raincoat," a song, he said, "that I didn't know anybody knew about, that we have only sung in concerts. It's a song that I wrote in New York when I was living on the east side of the East Side, and it"s about sharing women, sharing men, and the idea that if you hold on to somebody..." Leonard let the conclusion drift away. During the songs, the audience was silent, entranced. When the band stopped, the applause was loud and rapturous. "I really wanted to say that this is the audience that we've been looking for," said Leonard, who sounded moved and happy. "I've never felt so good playing before people." People who were mentally damaged seemed to make Leonard and his songs feel at home. They performed other mental hospital concerts later that year, "and those shows were one of the best things about the whole tour, every one of them," said Donovan, "just the way the audience locked in on what Leonard was doing and how he just interacted with them."
======
FULL RANKINGS:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W8U7zi4jcHzL0IxEyzoeSfmOZisCOz0ZKdRMGMW1m00/edit?usp=sharing
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, 13 December 2016 03:56 (seven years ago) link
Thanks for doing this! R.I.P. LC
― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Tuesday, 13 December 2016 04:07 (seven years ago) link
I feel a bit dopey for suggesting this poll and then not voting in it (life got in the way). Would have had "Joan of Arc" as a #1 and would also have boosted some of those one-voters ("Fingerprints" and "Tonight Will Be Fine" come to mind).
Anyway, fantastic rollout, and here's something else special, The Vogues (yes, the "Five-O-Clock World" dudes) in their waning days addressing "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye": https://youtu.be/BBO2AMMnhOQ
― a full playlist of presidential apocalypse jams (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 13 December 2016 04:33 (seven years ago) link
That's a good one - I spotted it, but I was cover'd out by "Suzanne" (for which I easily could have posted another 10)
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, 13 December 2016 04:37 (seven years ago) link
Also, did the gap between the stuff from the debut and the title track You Want It Darker make this the widest spanning artist poll, placement-wise? Dylan had it before, but IIRC his newest countdown track was from the 00s vs. Freewheelin' in '63.
― a full playlist of presidential apocalypse jams (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 13 December 2016 04:40 (seven years ago) link
Not sure, but it's a mighty impressive span, especially when you consider that he released Songs of Leonard Cohen at 33, whereas Dylan was 21/22 in the Freewheelin' era.
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, 13 December 2016 04:58 (seven years ago) link
I forgot to vote, but thanks to everyone who did - only surprise to me was 'Closing Time' missing out on the top 40 altogether.
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 14 December 2016 09:57 (seven years ago) link
I was a little surprised that "I Can't Forget" didn't place, but I suppose the version on I'm Your Man is one of the synthiest on a very synthy album (which I like, but I get that not everyone does). The one I hear in my head is probably spliced with the great Pixies version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEIwADZQN_o
― Andrew Farrell, Wednesday, 14 December 2016 13:48 (seven years ago) link
So is it OK to post our ballots now? That's normally a thing on ILM polls, right?
― heaven parker (anagram), Thursday, 15 December 2016 08:00 (seven years ago) link
seems ok to me! here's mine (non-placers in bold)
The Partisan Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye Paper Thin Hotel First We Take Manhattan Hallelujah Suzanne Who by Fire Famous Blue Raincoat The Master Waiting for the Miracle Ballad of the Absent MareOn the Level The Law Lover, Lover, LoverSo Long, Marianne FingerprintsYou Want It Darker Story of IsaacI Can’t ForgetLady Midnight
― Karl Malone, Thursday, 15 December 2016 08:08 (seven years ago) link
Here's mine then, bold didn't place. Interestingly (or maybe not), all four of my non-placers are from Recent Songs.
1. Famous Blue Raincoat2. Joan of Arc3. Suzanne4. Take This Longing5. The Window6. So Long Marianne7. Bird on the Wire8. The Guests9. Hey That's No Way To Say Goodbye10. Chelsea Hotel #211. The Traitor12. Alexandra Leaving13. One of Us Cannot Be Wrong14. Sisters of Mercy15. Take This Waltz16. Stranger Song17. Avalanche18. Ballad of the Absent Mare19. Anthem20. If It Be Your Will
― heaven parker (anagram), Thursday, 15 December 2016 08:56 (seven years ago) link
a very enjoyable poll, great blurbs
your mini-essay on Paper Thin Hotel made me listen to that song anew and the Dulli rendition is too beautiful
did not vote, had I voted there is a chance that "Darkness" had been my #1 (surely top 3)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Bxbw0wfDOI
no grand statement on life, but a HELLA cool blues
― niels, Thursday, 15 December 2016 09:04 (seven years ago) link
weirdly I am not a huge fan of the Dulli PTH, I had to include it tho obviously
playlist finally updated with the entire top 40:https://open.spotify.com/user/suckerblues/playlist/58W5K0QfbwWu3nbvaf009k
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Friday, 16 December 2016 14:40 (seven years ago) link
listening to "Field Commander Cohen" rn. weird that he mentions Fidel Castro in this song. he's the only named person in the song other than Cohen. they both died Nov 2016.
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Saturday, 17 December 2016 04:52 (seven years ago) link
man, the title track of Death of a Ladies' Man got robbed in this one
― Karl Malone, Friday, 13 January 2017 04:38 (seven years ago) link
It's a strange song, with a kind of off-putting, aloof quality... The lyric is wonderful (though I don't know whether it would stand on its own as poetry), & kinda reminds me of some early mock-ballads of T.S. Eliot (the line about the "working-class mustache" in particular... I couldn't say why)
But the production job -- striking though it is -- seems to lack some necessary dynamic or textural variation, with the result that listening to it just wears me out.
― bernard snowy, Friday, 20 January 2017 16:05 (seven years ago) link
Karl otm
― Οὖτις, Friday, 20 January 2017 17:04 (seven years ago) link
love that drums-less ending that just stretches on, twinkling in the heavens.
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 20 January 2017 22:57 (seven years ago) link
haha yeah the coda just goes ooooonnnnnnnnn
Spector's penchant for leaving in drumming mistakes is sort of endearing, shows up most prominently on this song and Dion's "Born to Be With You"
― Οὖτις, Friday, 20 January 2017 23:00 (seven years ago) link
i think about Dion and Cohen's albums all the time. 70s Phil Spector is an odd beast, lots of string synths, leaving in mistakes, etc. DOALM is pretty much an unfinished record, using rough vocals cos the tapes were basically taken at ransom (???) and Cohen never got to finish the record on his terms. from what i have read, Cohen never really hated this album or cursed Spector for doing that. it was a totally unique experience for him, which is a big part of why he wanted them to work together in the first place.
so we have live bands and endless rehearsal replaced by...ethereal multi-track symphonies? it used to be teenage symphonies, now it's middle aged symphonies, fat and bloated, drunk, still lusting after young women and pining over lost loves, trying to deconstruct your persona or fall in love yet again after failing at both so many times. a pop Dark Night of the Soul. fwiw i feel like The Beach Boys "Love You" fits neatly into this category. another attempt at synthesized studio pastiches of 60s doo wop.
love in space. it is not simply a wall of sound anymore, it is a swirling, churning galaxy. in the 70s Spector sort of got into space rock. the lilting keyboards on the intro to "Paper Thin Hotel" is very Spacemen 3. (also see Dion's phaser-drenched cover of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands".)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN6H3B42j1k
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Saturday, 21 January 2017 02:21 (seven years ago) link
Jason Pierce loves BTBWY iirc. You can def hear 70s Spector in the S3/Spiritualized stuff.
― Οὖτις, Saturday, 21 January 2017 02:30 (seven years ago) link
George Harrison's "Let It Down" also belongs on a Phil Spector-Spiritualized mixtape
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Saturday, 21 January 2017 02:46 (seven years ago) link
Excellent posts.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 21 January 2017 04:06 (seven years ago) link
nah the whole DOalM album is horrible, by some way LC's worst album
― heaven parker (anagram), Saturday, 21 January 2017 15:16 (seven years ago) link
challops
― niels, Saturday, 21 January 2017 15:19 (seven years ago) link
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/24/drank-a-lot
― wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 14:01 (five years ago) link