My brother and I discovered Leonard Cohen in a Christian Slater movie. Pump Up the Volume, 1990. Actually, that’s also where we discovered Concrete Blonde. Seriously, folks, that was the best soundtrack of my teen years – including everything from the Brat Pack.
Anyway, sometime last year, Scott picked up a two disk compilation from Cohen. I borrowed it and never gave it back. There are songs I am still trying to figure out.
The Chicago Tribune ran an article today about Cohen that said his masterpiece, Hallelujah, has 15 pages of verses as written (as opposed to recorded). This YouTube clip has some of the (new? alternate?) material:
Cohen is going to be in town this week. We thought for five seconds about getting tickets, but concerts aren’t my favorite thing and they started at $250.00. But seriously, 15 verses? I am going to be meditating on this guy for the rest of my life.
Now excuse me while I get on the Internet to find the entire text and try to analyze it like The Rime of the Ancient Freakin’ Mariner. (Was it Rime or Rhyme in the Ancient Mariner?)
About Me
- Anne
- I am an HR professional, perennial student, and volunteer. I read all sorts of articles on personal finance and also the travel section and plenty of books and I will tell you all about them. I still believe "if you want to get something done, you ask the busiest person". I live in Glenview, IL.
Crowdrise is about online fundraising, event fundraising, volunteering and having the most fun in the world while doing it. Crowdrise is way more fun than anything else aside from being all nervous about trying to kiss a girl for the first time and her not saying something like 'you've got to be kidding me.'
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1 comment:
The 15 verses of Hallelujah are only those he faxed to John Cale at Cale's request. Cohen, in an interview with Neil McCormick, Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen on Hallelujah, explained his style of writing this way: "If a song is to yield you might have to stay with it for years and years. 'Hallelujah' was at least five years. I have about 80 verses. I just took verses out of the many that established some sort of coherence. The trouble that I find is that I have to finish the verse before I can discard it. So that lengthens the process considerably." [emphasis mine]
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