A Fine Song

(In memoriam: an article first published on 20th March 2013 on the Mslexia guest blog.)

“This is a fine song. A fine song.”

With this statement, I was introduced to the work of Leonard Cohen. His praises were being sung in Woodroffe High School, Ottawa, by my English teacher – an inspirational individual who was inclined to deliver a class from inside the closed store cupboard, or encourage us to graffiti over the blackboard and then award a prize for the most biting witticism, or write in huge lettering across an exam answer: GADZOOKS GIRL!!! READ THE QUESTION.

For such a person, how would we not sit up and listen?

We had the word-sheet and we sang along. And yes, we were prepared to concede: Leonard Cohen’s So Long Marianne was a fine song.

Although I didn’t take at the time to Cohen’s rather scratchy thin voice – nor appreciate that the bouzuki sound towards the end of the song was a neat allusion to the Greek island of Hydra where Cohen lived with the eponymous Marianne – a couple of verses from that song began to imprint themselves and have never left me:

Well you know that I love to live with you,
But you make me forget so very much.
I forget to pray for the angels
And then the angels forget to pray for us

…………………………………………….. 

Your letters they all say that you’re beside me now.
Then why do I feel alone?
I’m standing on a ledge and your fine spider web
Is fastening my ankle to a stone.

Now as I contemplate the prospect of writing my own lyrics, it occurs to me there is much to learn from Leonard Cohen, who at the age of 78 is still out on the road, performing his latest album Old Ideas. It is not so much his personal longevity that interests me, admirable though that is, but the endurance of his songs.

Perhaps Cohen’s lyrics were always destined for a superior kind of polish given that he was first and foremost a printed-page poet.  A number of collections that won praise in Canada before be became a singer and a name on the world stage – Let us Compare Mythologies (1956) The Spice-Box of Earth (1961) and Flowers for Hitler (1963) – established his craft before ever Marianne, as it is rumoured, handed him a guitar on which to compose tunes as well.

It is his poet’s attention to detail, to syllabics and rhyme, that have, I feel, given his songs their legs. But though one might think this set of skills would make for an easy transition to songwriter, Cohen has spoken about the sheer slog of finding the right words to link with melody. He is famed for drafting and redrafting, for notebooks stuffed with ideas, for songs that have taken years to write.  But even after all that, he is aware that there is still something indefinable in the songwriter’s task. As he says in Songwriters on Songwriting:

Well, things come so damn slow. Things come and they come and it’s a tollgate, and they’re particularly asking for something that you can’t manage.  

They say: “We’ve got the goods here. What have you got to pay?” Well, I’ve got my intelligence, I’ve got a mind. “No, we don’t want that.”I’ve got my whole training as a poet. “No, we don’t want that. “I’ve got some licks, I’ve got some skills with my fingers on the guitar. “No, we don’t want that.” Well, I’ve got a broken heart. “No, we don’t want that.” I’ve got a pretty girlfriend. “No, we don’t want that.” I’ve got sexual desire. “No, we don’t want that.” I’ve got a whole lot of things and the tollgate keeper says: “That’s not going to get it. We want you in a condition that you are not accustomed to. And that you yourself cannot name. We want you in a condition of receptivity that you cannot produce by yourself.” 

One of Cohen’s most extraordinary successes is Hallelujah, a song that has been recorded some 370 times by artists of larger and smaller note, used as soundtrack in films and TV series such as Shrek and The West Wing, and requested at funerals and  weddings. The song, alluding to the Biblical story of David, to sexual temptation, to the sacred and the secular, and to questions of faith, had a difficult gestation of three years and seventy verses. “I remember being on the floor, on the carpet in my underwear, banging my head on the floor and saying, ‘I can’t finish this song’” Cohen said, quoted in a  BBC article on Ian Light’s recently published book about the story of Hallelujah.

When Cohen finally came to the recording studio, the song had been honed to four verses. But compared to later versions, Cohen's original is a surprise – a rather cheesy number, with staccato endings in the chorus and a swing feel.  Columbia Records had such commercial reservations about it and the entire album Various Positions, that the decision was made to release first in Europe, in 1984, before a launch in the US the year later.

Nonetheless, Cohen, whose career had hit a slight doldrums, was still doing live appearances and Hallelujah, aired at times with substitute verses, met favour with audiences.  Even Bob Dylan, arguably the most famous of the 60s generation wordsmith singers, performed it in 1988.  But then the song underwent two important regenerations – first by John Cale (originally from Velvet Underground) who used a simplified piano arrangement and a different set of Cohen’s verses, and then, in 1994, by Jeff Buckley, who stood before a microphone with spell-binding vocal inflections and an echoing guitar.  His tragic death by drowning two years later at the age of thirty made a threnody and cult classic out of this haunting – and many would argue definitive – version.

Both Cale and Buckley sang the same first two verses as Leonard Cohen did in his original recording, but added a different final three, rooted in relationship and  physicality, and with a bleaker end line: It’s a cold and broken Hallelujah rather than Cohen’s more defiant: With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.

Leonard Cohen original recorded version Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord But you don’t really care for music, do you? It goes like this The fourth, the fifth The minor fall, the major lift The baffled king composing Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah Your faith was strong but you needed proof You saw her bathing on the roof Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you She tied you to a kitchen chair She broke your throne, and she cut your hair And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah You say I took the name in vain I don’t even know the name But if I did, well really, what’s it to you? There’s a blaze of light in every word It doesn’t matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah I did my best, it wasn’t much I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you And even though it all went wrong I’ll stand before the Lord of Song With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah

John Cale/Jeff Buckley version Verse 1 – same . . . . . . . . . . .Verse 2 – same . . . . . . . . .Baby I’ve been here before I’ve seen this room and I’ve walked this floor (you know) I used to live alone before I knew you And I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch and love is not a victory march It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah… There was a time when you let me know What’s really going on below But now you never show that to me, do you? But remember when I moved in you And the holy dove was moving too And every breath we drew was Hallelujah Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah… Maybe there’s a God above But all I’ve ever learned from love Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you And it’s not a cry that you hear at night It’s not somebody who’s seen the light It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah…

Other artists have endeavoured to put their own stamp on the song – from K.D. Lang’s acclaimed performance, through Bon Jovi, Rufus Wainwright and Alexandra Burke, winning contestant on the UK’s X Factor in 2008 who, despite the de rigueur schmaltzy key change for the final verse, gave a creditable interpretation, and all the way to a highly idiosyncratic recording by Bono.

Even the  ukelele-playing Jake Shimabukuro has finessed an instrumental version, drawn he claims, to the tune. But it is my assertion that he would not have been captivated by this song had it not been for the musicality mined in it by Jeff Buckley via Jim Cale. And those versions may never have existed were it not for a compelling set of lyrics that invited reinterpretation. I think Shimabukuro would not have heard the song in the way that he did but for those who passed it on. It’s like the end of a Chinese Whispers round.

Yet this song, to me, was cemented through its lyrics. 

So, what can a would-be lyricist learn from Leonard Cohen?

• That sweat and tears may be the sine qua non of great lyrics. Cohen has talked eloquently about frustrations.“If I knew where the good songs came from, I’d go there more often. It’s a mysterious condition. It’s much like the life of a Catholic nun. You’re married to a mystery.”
• That words in which a sentiment is authentically conveyed become more than just a simple plate on which a tune is delivered.
• That a poem, sung, might have much wider reach than a print version.
• That evocative lyrics can transcend a rather average musical arrangement…
• …and that, therefore, other people with different rhythms, inflections and music within them can run differently with the blueprint.

About this last point, I am reminded of “the eye” referred to by the poet Alice Oswald on a recent Radio 4 programme, The Echo Chamber presented by Paul Farley. “There’s something mysterious about what animates a poem,” she says. “I always try to create an eye in a poem … which I see as a kind of pinhole through which light can pass….It’s a kind of exit point in the poem that stops it from being a solipsism….But when I see that it has a pinprick hole in it through which something different can enter then I’ll be satisfied. Even if it’s an imperfect poem, at least it’s got a kind of consciousness of its own.” 

I think that Leonard Cohen’s lines in songs such as So Long Marianne and Hallelujah have such an eye – giving them a “kind of consciousness” that inspires other performers to sing the words again and again. There could be no better accolade for a lyrics writer.

 A Fine Song - Mslexia 20 March 2013

Dig Down

All about spadework and treasure, our latest song Dig Down is actually based on the blog entitled Gem.  Does that make it a blong?  In any event, hope you enjoy it!



Photo from indulgy.com

A Son and Daughter

Shoes wear unevenly and are customised to the owner.  A gait is imprinted on them.  For these sentimental reasons, I have kept my children’s first shoes (one pair of which features in the song A Son and Daughter by the A Woman in Goggles band).  Their shoes are containers and reminders of joyful exploration and bids for independence.  From the shoes I can infer the entire child.  My arms can remember the exact shape, weight, and centre of gravity of my daughter and son.  Their child selves are still warm ghosts in my embrace.  

I have not tried to polish off the scuff marks.  Everything is as when the shoes were last worn.  Nothing has been prettified -  the trip-ups are there, the scratches, the shadows of objects bumped into.

The shoes that come to life in the video are symbolic of all steps and all paths.  Compared to other mammals, humans take an inordinate amount of time to get upright.  But what celebration when they do! 

Drinker Tune

 Delighted that Anna Steinberg, who did the A Woman in Goggles logo, has illustrated our Drinker Tune song.   

One sentence about music in which lots of conjunctions - as well as choirs and goats - get an unplanned outing

This sentence is attempting to follow music to its logical conclusion, which isn’t logical at all given that the trail contorts, yet the journey, if you can imagine it, is as pre-determined as the route of the number 61 bus in Ottawa taken every Monday and Wednesday on the way to the Ottawa Public Schools Central Choir for which, let’s pretend, you are auditioning, and where you stand on a stage for the first time, looking out to your mother who has her eyes cast down in order not to put you off as you are made to sing God Save the Queen (not even O Canada), and then asked to copy phrases in a lower register, in the alto, which suits better, although you did not know there would be others with richer, stronger voices; Gail, for instance, one of those girls mature beyond her years who immediately gets whichever piece of music is thrown at her and is already the matriarch of the group, notwithstanding others on the sidelines who are bound to attempt a minor coup the way that cats gang up - or goats for that matter when they stare you out on a narrow road in Crete, as if their knack for climbing rocky heights and lounging on narrow ledges gives them inalienable superiority, despite the fact, it has to be said, that when served in stew they can be a little stringy; it all depends on the amount of sauce, preferably a marinade in which the meat has been left to relax, like softening the blow, softening the tragedy whose etymological origin, of course, spookily, means goat song, that wail of goat mothers when they are separated from their kids, the primeval hurt, the hurt of hurts, the howl, the end of all music.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star by A Woman in Goggles

A Coat, a Wig and a Roving Star

Having being born the day before the traditional Epiphany, squeaking in just before the Twelve Days of Christmas are officially over, I’ve grown up being aware of stars and wise men out wandering.

And while I can imagine The Magi at this time of year on their singular journey, busy looking towards the heavens, my own eyes seem to be more firmly on the ground tracking wise men.  Any wise man or woman.  The kind of person on whose door you can rap, who will invite you in, speak in riddles you must untangle, ladle out warming broth, sit and listen to your woes, dust you down, then set you back on course, clearer and more focused.  

I realise that wise people rarely heave into view looking like Gandalf and more often come across your path heavily disguised – often in the garb of a person you’re too instantly prepared to dismiss.  I thought of one yesterday as I was cleaning the bathroom for visitors.  In fact, I think of him every single time I wipe down a basin, and hear his voice saying: immer fliessend, Katie, immer fliessend.  He was a barrel-bellied Croatian gastarbeiter in the Hansa Hotel in Wiesbaden, where I was a chambermaid for the summer I was nineteen, and he taught me everything I now know about turning round a bathroom in minutes – especially, although not necessarily economically, by keeping the water continually running while swooshing around the taps with a cloth.  His words, which were originally meant simply to communicate a knack, have transformed over time into a nugget of wisdom,  and the instructions immer fliessend, meaning always flowing, have become a mantra in my head, not just about water in a basin, but about a way of living that aspires to be easy and fluid rather than rigid and stuck.  

Yet I am still drawn to the notion of a wise and wondrous magical character, stepping out of the gloom attired in home-spun but mystic raiments.  As you can see in the photo above, I’ve laid out his/her coat in readiness (a Kashmiri embroidered dressing gown that my mother brought back from India when she was twenty-seven) and I've provided a flowing mane of hair and a hat graced with the proverbial star.  We used these props in a recent You Tube release of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star reworked by the A Woman in Goggles band.

For this traditional song of looking, wondering and seeking is nothing if not a song for Epiphany.  

And the pictured clothes are waiting to be inhabited and spring to life.

   

Song-Bombing

Inside Abbey of Saint-Avit-Sénieur 

The Woman in Goggles music project continues apace and has been elbowing out blog time.  Eight, could it be nine? original songs are in gestation, tottering on the edge of birth. Except for My Shrink is Pregnant, none are at large in the community.  But the corollary of penning tunes is the quest to have them aired, live - if only to three sympathetic people - necessitating a rappety-tap on venue doors and asking busy landlords and hard-pressed landladies for a gig.  

Sometimes I think this would all be easier if I were still in my twenties.  But when I was in my twenties I was even more scared, though of different things.  Or maybe they were the same things – that one isn’t good enough, that one’s efforts, or barefaced cheek, will be met with guffaws of incredulity.  At which my instant response has always been: I was just kidding.

Meanwhile, limbering up, I’ve done a little of what we could term song-bombing.  Its crucial difference from photo-bombing, which is defined by Wikipedia as 'the act of inserting oneself into the field of view of a photograph often in order to play a practical joke on the photographer or the subjects', is to give pleasure rather than affront.  It consists of getting a song into a public place, spontaneously, non-threateningly, and without a busker’s cap in sight.  I've notched up only a handful of scores, largely in safe spaces, like an empty church.  I did rounds with close friends and family in Nolay and Saint-Germain-de- Belvès in France.  When no one was looking, or listening, I slipped a quick solo Hodie Cristus Natus Est by Benjamin Britten into the Abbey of Saint-Avit-Sénieur whose splendid interior demanded something reverential and soaring, even though it was a baking July day and this was a Christmas carol.

Two years ago, when I was in the Svaneti region of the Republic of Georgia learning Georgian songs, the song-bombing technique was perfected by members in my group.  Of the many gorgeous melodies sung many times, I wish I could have recorded the spine-tingling harmonies of Madge, Nana, Nicoletta, Fran, Derek and Irene on one particular day when they broke out into an echoing Shen Xar Venaxi in a local church. 

Instead, I’ll need to leave you with this version. 

Oh, and the beginning of Hodie Cristus Natus Est by boy soprano David Cizner.  

Enjoy!

A Hatching

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A Reason to Rhyme

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Phone a Friend

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David Bowie and the Art of Furniture Removal

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