I always found it helpful to take a slighty sci-fi, Stephen King look at this song. If you imagine that there really is a Tower of Song, and that is a lonely, bleak edifice in the middle of a desert it seems to make sense. Yes, old steam trains come and go through the Tower's station and the residents have old radios that they can listen to and broadcast on, but essentially it is a building where old poets and singers go to either see out the end of their days or address the feelings of angst and curiosity they may have.
Alternatively, it's just Leonard Cohen picking out a wonderful off-beat melody, writing some excellent lines of nonsense and just demonstrating how a master can rule with the simplest of compositions (c.f Fog (again) [live] by Radiohead or Into my Arms by Nick Cave etc, etc.)
I always found it helpful to take a slighty sci-fi, Stephen King look at this song. If you imagine that there really is a Tower of Song, and that is a lonely, bleak edifice in the middle of a desert it seems to make sense. Yes, old steam trains come and go through the Tower's station and the residents have old radios that they can listen to and broadcast on, but essentially it is a building where old poets and singers go to either see out the end of their days or address the feelings of angst and curiosity they may have.
Alternatively, it's just Leonard Cohen picking out a wonderful off-beat melody, writing some excellent lines of nonsense and just demonstrating how a master can rule with the simplest of compositions (c.f Fog (again) [live] by Radiohead or Into my Arms by Nick Cave etc, etc.)