Samson In New Orleans

Published in 2014, this song is heavy with the subtle and the sombre, peppered with arcane religious reference and the cryptic playfulness that so characterises Leonard Cohen’s work.

The meaning of the song has long been debated elsewhere - with consensus converging to strongly theological interpretations but not really focussed on any specific theme or any one event. And these are not incorrect. What portrays the duality within theology better than the historic events around 9/11 .

I suspect that this song is about the fall of the twin towers (WTC) in the September 2001 attacks. It is written clearly by the victims of the attacks (‘we who cried for mercy’, ‘I’m blind with death and anger’), but only partly towards her assailants. It is also written as a prayer.

Cohen deals masterfully with the friction between the West (including from a Judaic perspective) and other belief systems (including that of Islam, see for example, the Cohen song ‘Different Sides’). But this song is not clearly about Islam. Rather, it is about estrangement, loss of trust and betrayal. In the song, Cohen alludes repeatedly to people once considered appreciative denizens that then turned .. for example, ‘you said that you were with me, you said you were my friend. Did you really love the city. Or did you just pretend.’ … ‘you loved her secrets, her freedoms, that’s what I heard you say’ … ‘you said how could this happen, you said how can this be’. etc.

In considering the name of the song - Samson in New Orleans - Samson may conveniently refer to the fall of the ‘temple’ in the biblical narrative, and New Orleans may be nothing other than a playful diversion of a name of a US city from the one the song is directed towards. But I do not believe the use of New Orleans is at all accidental. The play here is on man-made versus natural disasters. New Orleans suffered terribly from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 … the words in the song later echo: ‘The chains are gone from heaven. The storms are wild and free’.

The song refers to falls of the temple (‘take this temple down’) and the crumbling pillars in the story of Samson (‘stand me by those pillars’). It is no coincidence there are two pillars in the biblical story of Samson. And two world trade towers that were destroyed in acts of terrorism.

Cohen implores that there are surely alternatives to restitution but what has come to pass is simply tragic (‘There’s other ways to answer. That certainly is true. Me, I’m blind with death and anger.)

The ‘pit’ is the term referred to as the previous heap of ash and debris at ground zero of the WTC’s. ‘And we who cried for mercy. From the bottom of the pit. Was our prayer so damn unworthy. The Son rejected it’. Also interesting that the Hebrew for Samson is Shimshon, being Son of the Sun. The theological use of Son is well known ito Christianity. The interplay between the religions who worship the moon and the sun, similarly understood. Note in the song ‘Different Sides’ the words: ‘The pull of the moon, the thrust of the sun’.

That’s my take on what I hear in the sadness of the music and in the wording of those lyrics, rightly or wrongly.