| CocoRosie – By Your Side Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I completely agree with vianna, and to take the song on a slightly different angle, this song doesn't have to be just about a woman selling herself into patriarchy for "a diamond ring", it could be about anyone selling themselves in a capitalist society: a woman sells herself to her husband who feels he has the right to abuse her; a man sells himself to his company; a government to industry; etc. As a man anyhow this is what i read into the song and the political tone on the record in general, i feel, backs this point of view up. I certainly don't think these girls are singing about how they'd be willing put up with any crap for the love of some dude, it wouldn't be coherent with their works or personalities in general. |
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| Leonard Cohen – Famous Blue Raincoat Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Notes on Famous Blue Raincoat Really cool website for chatting about songs… the comments and different views are great… willy61’s comment says that it puts most of the internet to shame… I agree… I just found this site recently and have never really taken part in any forums before, I like music so it wouldn’t be a bad way to start… well, so much has been said about this song that I’m not sure if there’s anything new I can add, but I’ll give it a try anyhow… I’ve known Cohen’s music for years but have only really started to get into his music recently, he’s becoming one of my musical idols, the songs are amazing, and, as a singer - at his best - he gets it just right on the button in his own particular way, his voice (if not really potent) is sweet and his diction (for me, what I like most about him as a singer) adds so much to the lyrics. I won’t speak too much about the lyrics (as I mentioned, so much has been said already), only to comment on what some say in regards to not taking everything Cohen says in this song at face value (with full respect), fair enough, however I would neither interpret his words as sarcastic… rather, every word contributes something to the meaning of the song… I’ll talk though about what the music adds to the song’s meaning (I’ll try to keep it as brief as possible – hard when talking about a Cohen song). I’ll start with the line “thanks, for the trouble…” as it’s the first line which struck me with the pattern that I want to talk about, and it highlights my point quite well. For me, how the song is sung here reflects something which could easily be lost just looking at the lyrics as they are on paper. It’s sung “thanks, for the trouble you took (pause) from her eyes…” The pause, when you’re listening closely, causes you to hear ‘to take the trouble to do something’, like for example, thanks for taking the trouble you took to help me out with my homework last night, then as the line continues after the pause with “…from her eyes” the meaning of ‘to take the trouble’ changes, giving this particular phrase a double meaning, from ‘to take the trouble to do something’ to ‘to take something away’. In my view, just brilliant (sorry for that little outburst). I’ll just quickly give two more examples of this. When the lyrics “Jane came (pause) by…” are sung, if sung well, the word ‘came’ could be the past tense of the verb ‘to cum’ (as in to have an orgasm) rather than ‘to come’, giving this line the double meaning: Jane ‘came’ (was exited, jubilant or in love) during her amorous adventures with the ‘brother’ or ‘friend’ and also, Jane dropped by the house. The other quick example I wanted to mention (and this one makes my hairs stand on end, it’s sung so beautifully), is when the word “flake” is sung, Cohen, with his beautiful diction, sings “flay (pause) kə. The kə is a flake of the word flake. One more small outburst if you’ll forgive me: if I’m right about that one, absolute genius, and take note, even without that particular interpretation most people do mention the “flake” when interpreting this song. The main question has to be: Was any of this was actually intended by Cohen himself or is it just my own invention? The melody change in the “Jane came by…” part of the song lends itself pretty well to this interpretation if Cohen is as good a musician as I think, and not only a great lyricist who did this by accident. Saying this, the pause after “Jane came…” is less prominent, and so, less sure. I listened to two other versions of the song on youtube to compare other musicians’ interpretations: an unknown (by me anyway) Scottish girl, Angela Mccluskey - whose video I clicked on by chance just to hear a version by a singer I don’t know - sings the song with the pauses I mentioned, though it’s impossible for me to know if she had the same ideas as me or if that’s just her singing style. Tori Amos sings a nice version however she raises the note and sustains it on the word “took” which makes it ambiguous as to whether or not she meant to use the pauses to add meaning. Cohen himself is certainly aware of what meaning the lyrics and music can add to each other: in the first verse of the song hallelujah he describes the chord changes of the very same song as they happen in the lyrics “and it goes like this and the forth the fifth…” the chord changes fit – impressively - perfectly with the lyrics. And also, another great musician, Paco De Lucia, one of the best living guitarists today, said, at some point he could take any scale and make it as fast as he wanted, but later he realised that the pauses you make are more important than the virtuosity you display. These points make me think that it’s definitely possible that all this was deliberate, however, each person will have to decide for himself how to interpret this song and Cohen is so brilliant that endless ways of seeing his songs are always found. I did say I’d try to keep it brief and I managed to fit into just over 900 words what I think could easily be an essay of 5000 words, so I reckon, not so bad… I’ll try to keep the next take at under 500 words… we’ll see… and keep up the good work, keep (as we are) talking about Cohen and keep his songs alive… Cohen’s great. |
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