Chelsea Hotel #2, by Leonard Cohen.
Another dreary Leonard Cohen number? No! Another joyful Leonard Cohen celebration of life. To be honest, we started watching Hawkeye, and it made me a smidgen nostalgic for New York in winter, so I was headed for Famous Blue Raincoat when this song popped into my head instead. It seemed so salacious when I was a teenager. It seems so naturally pedestrian now.
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31 DAYS LEFT!
If It Be Your Will, by Leonard Cohen.
Another one from the Pump Up The Volume soundtrack — I warned y’all it was formative — they don’t get through more than a verse of this song in the movie, and it stuck in my head so firmly that I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what it was, where to find it, which album it was on, etc., because although it’s in the movie, as noted by the Concrete Blonde version of Everybody Knows, the Leonard Cohen songs were not on the soundtrack that was released, I think? At least not the cassette I must’ve bought in 1992 or whatever. Reading up on it, Side B of Various Positions starts with Hallelujah and ends with this, and you can definitely hear some obvious bookending in the biblical-ish references.
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Still have a cough, so I sought out something deep.
Bird On The Wire, by Leonard Cohen.
Not Tom Waits, not Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, all wounded and sweet and fragile and all that. Wore that hat because it felt right, not because I wanted to do it cowboy-style.
Suzanne, by Leonard Cohen.
The fun thing about spending the day in the ocean is that no one can hear you mumbling songs to yourself in the waves. Also, literally choking on the lines about Jesus while wearing my Interfaith t-shirt is a little on the nose, even for me!
This song is the stuff of Leonard Cohen puzzles — who is it about? What does it mean? A lot of tea and citrus come from China, Leonard, etc.
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Recorded on the porch with the “Happy Hour” and “New Orleans” signs, and the cute string of bare light bulb looking things. And a ceiling fan, and Route 12 in the background. Had to go back to YT to get this uploaded properly.
Everybody Knows, by Leonard Cohen.
I think I wrote a little about this when I wrote about another Leonard Cohen track, but this song was my route into his music, by way of the Pump Up The Volume soundtrack — or, well, the movie, because I think the soundtrack might have the Concrete Blonde cover? Which is fine. But this is the Leonard Cohen version, all keyboards and synths and pumping beat, like some Wim Wenders 1980s black and white lens. (Why do I associate the I’m Your Man album so strongly with Wings of Desire? Does he use it in there somewhere? Or is it just the whole First We Take Manhattan aesthetic?)
Anyway, it’s a little cynical! “Everybody Knows” was a big part of my worldview as a teenager, and sat neatly along side the U2 Zoo TV tour video screen epigrams like “Everything You Know Is Wrong” when I started writing in my own secret poetry/journals in high school.
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Lots of layers here, including like 4 different drum loops just mashed in there together, and a synth, and a bass synth, and some high sorta bells synth, and the unnecessary guitar, and a few vocals, including a “deep like Leonard” track.
I messed up one of the later verses coming out of the little solo/break thing, and I’m not sure how, but it’s one of those compounding mistakes as I add layers and follow along with my own mess. I just went with it. Nothing like biffing the biblical verse, eh? [extremely nervous laughter]
Also, how the heck is my version like 1:45 longer than the record??
Sisters of Mercy, by Leonard Cohen.
Honestly, if this song doesn’t remind you of anyone, or several anyones, I feel bad for you. But there’s always hope, maybe it will remind you of someone(s) in the future.
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The nights this goes well, it’s because I can tell my basic guitar skills are improving. (I think this went well!)
Tower of Song, by Leonard Cohen.
My relationship with Leonard Cohen started with the movie Pump Up The Volume, which I feel like maybe I’ve already mentioned here, but… maybe not? The key Leonard Cohen songs in that one are Everybody Knows and If It Be Your Will. And I had the movie soundtrack, but that only had the Concrete Blonde version. So I made a point of getting a hold of I’m Your Man.
And if I remember correctly, I did that via a special order of a cassette at my first record store job? That makes no sense, but I’m pretty sure that’s how it went down.
It was worth it. Jazz Police, First We Take Manhattan, and this song, among others, gave that album a very 1980s Wim Wenders (or pre-Dogme Lars von Trier?)
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Easy one tonight. One Leonard-deep backing vocal. Sorry, didn’t do the whole backup singers thing or a proper one-finger piano solo, but I did a little trinkling in the background to try and get a similar feel.