OMG

As the official Patron of the official Mentalists for LC Guild
let me say I'm actualy at a loss for words to describe the concert
I've just returned from. ( Perhaps Destiny will do better )

His voice is supernatural, the themes are the very essence of what
we as mentalists should explore, and his stage craft impeccable.

On a more basic level, here's the set list - read it and weep

Set 1
1. Dance Me to the End of Love
2. The Future
3. Ain't No Cure for Love
4. Bird on the Wire
5. Everybody Knows
6. In My Secret Life
7. Who By Fire
8. Chelsea Hotel #2
9. Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye
10. Anthem

Set 2
11. Tower of Song
12. Suzanne
13. The Gypsy Wife
14. The Partisan
15. Boogie Street
16. Hallelujah
17. I'm Your Man
18. A Thousand Kisses Deep [recitation]
19. Take This Waltz

Encore 1
20. So Long Marianne
21. First We Take Manhattan

Encore 2
22. Famous Blue Raincoat
23. If It Be Your Will
24. Democracy

Encore 3
25. I Tried to Leave You
26. Wither Thou Goest


PS. this added up to just about 3 hours on stage.

Wow. What a set list. I'm jealous.

Timothy did you take notes or memorize the set list as he played? I'm impressed either way.

D

I could use that as a cue to push my new book and the memory tricks it contains
(see link below - available now)... however no ... google is my friend.

Actually, last nights show was around show #90 of the world tour
and from what I read, the set list is fairly constant, unlike say a Dylan
concert, where the open and close might be the same but the rest completely different from one night to the next.

Honestly, Don, my head is still reeling from the experience
and the incredible sense of community and compassion it invoked.

Reviving this old thread
in celebration of the new Leonard Cohen album
OLD IDEAS
his first in 8 years

anyone else have it yet?

No. But I plan on getting it soon!

I've heard parts and there are some songs that will become classics. THE NEW YORKER publlshed some of the lyrics a week or two ago. A must have!

Can we resurrect the group? Please!

"Going Home" was the poem / song they published in the New Yorker last week

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I love to speak with Leonard

He’s a sportsman and a shepherd

He’s a lazy ***

Living in a suit



But he does say what I tell him

Even though it isn’t welcome

He will never have the freedom

To refuse



He will speak these words of wisdom

Like a sage, a man of vision

Though he knows he’s really nothing

But the brief elaboration of a tube



Going home

Without my sorrow

Going home

Sometime tomorrow

To where it’s better

Than before



Going home

Without my burden

Going home

Behind the curtain

Going home

Without the costume

That I wore



He wants to write a love song

An anthem of forgiving

A manual for living with defeat



A cry above the suffering

A sacrifice recovering

But that isn’t what I want him to complete



I want to make him certain

That he doesn’t have a burden

That he doesn’t need a vision



That he only has permission

To do my instant bidding

That is to SAY what I have told him

To repeat



Going home

Without my sorrow

Going home

Sometime tomorrow

Going home

To where it’s better

Than before



Going home

Without my burden

Going home

Behind the curtain

Going home

Without the costume

That I wore



I love to speak with Leonard

He’s a sportsman and a shepherd

He’s a lazy ***

Living in a suit

Oh for ****'s sake
you've got to be kidding me

you can see the uncensored version
with the shocking word "*******"
still intact

and the lovely New Yorker font here

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/......em_cohen

Thank you, Mr. Hyde!

You DO NOT--I repeat--DO NOT--edit/censor poetry and/or other works of literature.

NOT! NOT!! NOT!!!

Do the mods understand how "filthy" Shakespeare is if you have a basic understanding of the language?!?

I expect this criticism will be "unposted" by the puritanical powers that be. (BTW, the Puritans were actually quite a raunchy bunch!)

Someone is reading my mind. I just spent all day with Old Ideas playing over and over on my iPod. Brilliant...as always. Sensual...as expected. Sharp perfect words. It's sublime and hypnotic.

I thought I was the only LC Gourmet!

"I'm Your Man" is one of the top ten recordings of all time.

How do you top lyrics like "looks like freedom but it feels like death...it's something in between I guess." or "the moon is swimming naked and the summer night is fragrant with the mighty expectation of relief." And ALL of Dance Me.

The growl is a song and the song is a poem and the poem is a symphony to your soul.

That's Leonard Cohen.

If there's a club I'm in.

David

We've run out of membership cards but all are welcome

"One by one the guests arrive
The guests are coming through
The open-hearted many
The broken-hearted few

And those who dance begin to dance
And those who weep begin
Welcome, welcome, cries a voice
Let all my guests come in"

The Guests .. LC

That set is quite the list and it does not evem include my favourite - The Stranger Song - if you don't know, try it on Youtube. It may not to appeal to others as much as it does to me, but I'm sure you will all like it. Saw him do this one live almost 35 years ago and I still love it.

Is there anything better than hearing LC's songs in the context of a brilliant movie? Remember the haunting image in "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" of the prostitutes riding in the rain to the town to the background music of "Sisters of Mercy"? If you've seen it, you'll never forget it!

I liked the use of first we take Manhattan on Watchmen. I'm quite liking the new album. The songwriting is till top notch. I like his increasingly gruff voice. He's got the common sense to make use of the backing singers alongside his own. Wasn't expecting much, but pleasantly surprised.

This was on the terrific LC Fan Site http://1heckofaguy.com/

Warning Signs of Leonard Cohen Syndrome

"You found The Watchmen to be miscast, overblown, and jejune – except for the use of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” which transformed the three minute sex scene between superheroes, Nite Owl and Silk Spectre II, into a tragicomic masterpiece destined to become a cinematic classic."

http://1heckofaguy.com/2010/04/06/warnin......yndrome/

just saying

Leonard's son Adam recently came out with a new album as well, called 'Like a Man', and he's sounding very Cohenesque.

Happy 79th!

I bought him a burning violin, but FedEx refused to ship it.

David

PS Happy birthday, Leonard. You rock.

I like that song he wrote about a blindfolded car drive/PK Touch routine:

Suzanne
"And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you've touched her perfect body with your mind."

Let us Canadians not forget that in addition to his music, his novels (though he only wrote two) are among the most striking our country has ever produced! I choose the word "striking" because they are works of either great beauty or great ugliness depending on your tastes.

In Montréal spring is like an autopsy. Everyone wants to see the inside of the frozen mammoth. Girls rip off their sleeves and the flesh is sweet and white, like wood under green bark. From the streets a sexual manifesto rises like an inflating tire, "The winter has not killed us again!" Spring comes into Québec from Japan, and like a prewar Crackerjack prize it breaks the first day because we play too hard with it. Spring comes into Montréal like an American movie of Riviera Romance, and everyone has to sleep with a foreigner, and suddenly the house lights flare and it's summer, but we don't mind because spring is really a little flashy for our taste, a little effeminate, like the furs of Hollywood lavatories. Spring is an exotic import, like rubber love equipment from Hong Kong, we only want it for a special afternoon, and vote tariffs tomorrow if necessary.

- Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers

Happy birthday to The Ladies' Man!