| Leonard Cohen – The Stranger Song Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Well, OK jakiewiet. I'm certainly no Biblical scholar. I'm not even a Christian. But what I am trying to say is that Leonard Cohen is a poet, and so he takes apparently ordinary circumstances and consciously arranges the words that he uses to describe the events in those circumstances to achieve a deeper meaning than a superficial reading would. And maybe I'm wrong in thinking that Cohen and Dylan study Biblical stories and incorporate them into their poetry...and just not "Story of Isaac" or "Saved." The lines are permeated with direct (Cohen) and indirect (Dylan) allegorical references to (dare I say it) scripture. Did you ever consider that religion is not what it appears to be? And that maybe the religion that's sold in the streets is false? And that maybe poets see through the darkness? Like all poetry, these songs were never intended to be taken literally, unless that's as far as the reader wants to take them. True hopelessness can be found in the search for literal meaning. |
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| Leonard Cohen – Avalanche Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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It is your world, beloved, It is your flesh that I wear. I agree Mahaft. The passage is unmistakable. "I am the light of the world." And while the Christ was in the world, he wore the flesh of the men in the world (as do we). I'm neither Christian nor Buddhist, but if I wanted to communicate a message to others, I would use words as symbols. Perhaps some would discern truth. And while the above lines for me recall the agony of the crucified, the words also promise the eternal bliss beyond the temporal world. I sleep beneath the golden hill. |
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| Leonard Cohen – Alexandra Leaving Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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They gain the light, they formlessly entwine; And radiant beyond your widest measure They fall among the voices and the wine. It's not a trick, your senses all deceiving, A fitful dream, the morning will exhaust And you who were bewildered by a meaning; Whose code was broken, crucifix uncrossed The last two lines above explain every lyric of L. Cohen. The meaning is not in the words themselves. The words are intended to transport the listener beyond the boundaries of material experience, beyond the imprisonment of ego. The symbolism in the lines evoke a transcendent vision of what we truly are. |
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| Leonard Cohen – Avalanche Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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36 years ago, a man I know bought a copy of Songs of Love and Hate, went home and smoked his usual brand of cigarette, and listened to Avalanche for the first time. The lyrics shattered his ego at the beginning of the second stanza: “You strike my side by accident, as you go down for your gold.” He realized that the lyrics were a perfect description of himself, and donning the wings of Icarus, escaped the labyrinth of the Minotaur. The song following Avalanche, Last Year's Man, totally destroyed any sense of the individuality of anyone. In particular the lyric “And the corners of the blueprint are ruined since they rolled Far past the stems of thumbtacks that still throw shadows on the wood" flew him too close to the sun. His moniker, Woodshadow, was stolen from the most brilliant passage in the English language, from the Telemachus chapter of Ulysses, where James Joyce writes: "Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the stairhead seaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of the dim sea. The twining stresses, two by two. A hand plucking the harpstrings, merging their twining chords. Wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim tide." He had first wanted "Wavewhite" but it was already taken. It is now twenty-three minutes past Christmas. I will continue later. |
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| Leonard Cohen – Avalanche Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Sorry, I should have made this a comment instead of a reply: "You who wish to conquer pain, you must learn, learn to serve me well." The Christ is the manifestation of God in the world we perceive as objects (or more abstractly, of form). When Jesus looks at a person, He sees beyond the person's body, and sees only the Christ within ("Jesus" symbolizes any person imprisoned in the (false)reality of exteral objects, as most of us do; but our true reality is the eternal Christ that dwells within each of us). When we view the world as a world of objects, we see illusion. But what we really are (the Christ) trancends the world of objects. If we refuse to view the true reality of the unity of all people as the Christ, we suffer (as the Buddha said). We suffer only when we do not obey the law of our true being. Many use the word "God" as the symbol that created the laws of being (or of existence). When Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, they entered the world of objective "reality," and began to suffer pain. Adam and Eve are symbols which represent any of us currently imprisoned in the world of pain. Adam and Eve disobeyed the law of God. So if a person wishes to conquer pain, that person must learn to serve God well. The word "satan" symbolizes darkness, the absence of the Christ light. Satan is the belief in the world of objects as an external reality. The world of the belief in objects is hell. I will continue later. |
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| Leonard Cohen – The Stranger Song Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Within the New Testament, the word for hospitality is the Greek word philoxenos. Philoxenos means to love the stranger (philos=love, xenos=stranger). So to offer hospitality in the New Testament is by definition to show love for the stranger. Jesus himself is both the stranger and the one offering hospitality. In the Gospel of Luke from 9:51 when Jesus “sets his face to go to Jerusalem” until 19:45 when he enters the Temple, Jesus is almost always on the road. In his travels Jesus stays with others, relying on their hospitality. Jesus is not always greeted warmly as we see when he is not welcomed in the first Samaritan village he tries to visit (Luke 9:52-56). Jesus remains the stranger, the one on the margins of society in need of the hospitality of others. The song is a portrayal of the male principle versus the female principle in the apparent reality of the sensory world of individual experience. In the spiritual world, gender is meaningless, and the concept of individuality is meaningless. |
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| Bob Dylan – All Along the Watchtower Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Not that you could in any way compare Dylan with James Joyce (who put so many allusions in Ulysses that it is truly unimaginable how much one man could be familiar with so many phrases in language, and passages in so many books). Anyway, this is what Joyce wrote: "I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality." Shakespeare's "Hamlet" opens on the tower of the watch. Joyce's Ulysses opens in a watch tower. Dylan's song, when taken in it's logical order in with the third stanza actually is the first, also opens on a watch tower (it is aslo the only song on the recording that begins with it's title). The original biblical reference was obviously known by all three, but that knowledge is probably coincidental, a mere simple twist of fate. |
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| Bob Dylan – All Along the Watchtower Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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This song is very intentionally written on many levels, several of which have already been stated. Yes, it undeniably is almost entirely based on Biblical passages. But of course it also is a social statement. And much more as well. Yes, Dylan is the joker and the thief. And Jesus is also the thief. As of course were the theives flanking Jesus, each pinned to his own cross. And yes, we each have also nailed ourselves to crosses. That was one of the many things that Jesus was trying to tell us. But who has an ear to listen? I am not agnostic, atheist, Christian, or Buddhist in the literal sense. I believe in the truth found within and beyond metaphor. And am also a joker. |
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| Joan Baez – Diamonds and Rust Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| It was no accident that they chose to sing "It Ain't Me Babe" at Newport. Look at the expressions on their faces, and the way Dylan changes the lyrics slightly and Joan laughs, and then Dylan attempts to imitate Joan's beautiful voice, and then Joan starts clowning around. Oh yeah, and the killer: Just before the song begins, Joan says, "That's the only one I know." They are both spontaneously acknowledging that they are hopelessly in love. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCvVNAtaiUg | |
| Leonard Cohen – Love Calls You By Your Name Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Leonard Cohen very often employs symbols found in Buddhism, Christianity, and Judaism, embracing William Blake's visionary realization that "All Religions are One." Cohen's poetry expresses a transcendent view of the world that sees beyond the veil of form. If someone experiences a transcendent vision of the world that lies beyond form, there follows the realization that all of us are one, united in the Christ (or Buddha). Cohen's songs evoke this experiential realization. And no one knows it's there until a person finds it. For some people, the first three songs serve to achieve this realization (particularly Avalanche). Then the first song on the second side recognizes those who have experienced the realization evoked by Avalanche, Last Year's Man, and Dress Rehearsal Rag (yes, Cohen carefully crafted the progressive song ordering). So Cohen is addressing everyone, but those who have chanced to have caught the lyrics of the previous songs in a way never before experienced, understand the first line in a different way. That's why "You thought it could never happen to all the people that you became." And the realization is that your body is lost in legend (the world of the traditional belief in the reality external objects) and the beast (your ego) is so very tame (non-existent). So your body (and everyone else's) is an illusion, and so you realize that you have become all other people. Everyone is merely a reflection of everyone else. And, to the astonishment of many, it is realized that our reality lies in the Christ or Buddha (both pure Spirit)in all of us. That is not the man (a symbol of actualized form, such as the physical body of Buddha, or Jesus), but the true transcendent reality (or essence) of man (Spirit). |
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| Leonard Cohen – Avalanche Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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"You who wish to conquer pain, you must learn, learn to serve me well." The Christ is the manifestation of God in the world we perceive as objects (or more abstractly, of form). When Jesus looks at a person, He sees beyond the person's body, and sees only the Christ within ("Jesus" symbolizes any person imprisoned in the (false)reality of exteral objects, as most of us do; but our true reality is the eternal Christ that dwells within each of us). When we view the world as a world of objects, we see illusion. But what we really are (the Christ) trancends the world of objects. If we refuse to view the true reality of the unity of all people as the Christ, we suffer (as the Buddha said). We suffer only when we do not obey the law of our true being. Many use the word "God" as the symbol that created the laws of being (or of existence). When Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, they entered the world of objective "reality," and began to suffer pain. Adam and Eve are symbols which represent any of us currently imprisoned in the world of pain. Adam and Eve disobeyed the law of God. So if a person wishes to conquer pain, that person must learn to serve God well. The word "satan" symbolizes darkness, the absence of the Christ light. Satan is the belief in the world of objects as an external reality. The world of the belief in objects is hell. I will continue later. |
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| Leonard Cohen – Avalanche Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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All words are symbols that merely refer to descriptions and actions in the illusory world of objects. In the spiritual world, they refer to communications between God and man. For example, Jesus was a man who realized that his body (an object) was a symbol for God (Spirit), and so became the Christ, the manifestation of God in the world of objects. He appeared in order to save people from their false beliefs in form, which imprisons them in hell. The Christ in Jesus recognized the Christ in all people, knowing that their bodies were illusory. People believe, as Jesus once did, that the world of objects exists as a temporal reality external to each individual mind. Jesus realized that the Christ within Him is an eternal light that shines away the illusory world of objects. The world of objects is symbolized by "darkness" since it is unilluminated. The Christ light dispels the darkness and experiences the reality of all people as the Christ (Spirit) within them. Since their bodies are illusory, all people are united in the one reality, the Christ (or Spirit, or Light). So the Christ in Jesus awoke (stepped into) in an avalanche of form. The false belief in the reality of form disfigures (as opposed to transfiguring) all who have not seen the light within them an others. The Buddha said that the world is pain. Who wishes to conquer pain? Who must learn to serve the Light of Spirit? Who needs company when All are One? And what of symbolizism of the centre of the world? Jewish tradition identifies the Golden Dome of the rock, in Jerusalem, as the foundation stone of the world. I will continue later. As an aside, the name Leonard Cohen means "Lion Priest." |
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