Leonard Cohen

Well, after many moons of posting blogs on another site, I've decided to transfer them over here to lovely Blogger, which I once utilized and then callously abandoned about three years ago. Unlike Myspace, Blogger is actually accessible here at work and -- what a sad commentary this is -- I do most of my writing at work. It's not that I don't have real work to do, it's more that when I'm sitting here in a big, mostly empty office with music playing, that's when ideas come to me. That, and it really helps diminish my stress level when I can put things aside for thirty minutes or so and just gush randomly onto a little white screen and into a mostly unknown audience.

It's a Rufus Wainwright kind of day over here, by which I mean that I've been listening to old Wainwright CDs all morning long. He makes the perfect contemplative music -- relaxing yet edgy and thought-provoking. I also love the random covers that he does; if you've never heard his cover of Careless Whisper with Ben Folds, go ye to YouTube right now and check it out. It's just awesomely funny and trippy. And right here is where I could head off on a tangent about how much I love Ben Folds now that he's no longer with Ben Folds Five, but let's just stop right here, shall we?

Anyway, one of the covers that Rufus Wainwright did was an old Leonard Cohen song, Chelsea Hotel No. 2, hence the title of the new-ish blog. It's my absolute favorite Cohen song, which is saying a lot (I think that my perverse obsession with Leonard Cohen has been well-documented elsewhere in my blogs, so I'll not go into this right now). I love Cohen's voice, but in the same way that you love Bob Dylan's voice. You accept that it's not perfect, it's often off-key, it's gravelly and not in the good Don Henley way and that's okay because - goddamn - the man wrote some of the most beautiful lyrics this world has ever seen and he can fucking mime them if he wants to because they're his. It doesn't matter how his voice sounds; to actually hear the man that wrote the words say or sing them aloud is an experience in and of itself. It's akin to listening to Eliot read The Wasteland aloud (please, please, please check this out if you've never heard it) and hearing where emphasis is placed upon certain words and phrases, where the pauses and breaths communicate deeper imagery and meaning, far removed from a world where scholars endlessly pick apart his lines and insert their own agendas and interpretations into his work.

But listening to Wainwright's voice with Cohen's lyrics...that was a revelation, too, the first time I heard it. Rufus Wainwright has the amazing ability to take lyrics that aren't his or that are his but have nothing at all to do with him (listen to The Art Teacher for an excellent example) and make you believe that he's felt all of the agony or excitement or passion himself. Now that's a great artist, a great performer. When I listen to Chelsea Hotel No. 2, I ache. I ache for lost opportunities, lost friends, lost times and possibilities and potential. But aching is not a bad thing, not always. Aching - any kind of unpleasantness, for that matter - just paints the good moments in starker contrast to the bad, forces you to appreciate them both more.

Now that I've driven on that side road for long enough, back to the highway. The main point here is that I wanted to share these lyrics because - as I've always said - there isn't enough Cohen in the world:

Chelsea Hotel No. 2

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
You were talking so brave and so sweet
Giving me head on the unmade bed
While the limousines wait in the street
Those were the reasons, that was New York
We were running for the money and the flesh
And that was called love for the workers in song
Probably still is for those of them left
Ah, but you got away, didn't you, babe?
You just turned your back on the crowd
You got away, I never once heard you say
I need you, I don't need you
I need you, I don't need you
And all of that jiving around

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
You were famous, your heart was a legend
You told me again you preferred handsome men
But for me, you would make an exception
Then, clenching your fists for the ones like us
Who are oppressed by the figures of beauty
You fixed yourself and said, well, nevermind
We are ugly, but we have the music
And then you got away, didn't you, babe?
You just turned your back on the crowd
You got away, I never once heard you say
I need you, I don't need you
I need you, I don't need you
And all of that jiving around

I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best
I can't keep track of each fallen robin
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
That's all
I don't even think of you that often

BONUS POINTS: Whosoever of you can tell me about whom Leonard Cohen wrote this song will receive, by U.S. Mail, a shiny penny.