The whole LP appears to me to articulate the realization that aside from our daily materialism and satisfaction of bodily needs, there is an inner life of the spirit, Cohen's "Secret Life". Jung talked about our archetypes, powerful metaphors that represent our hidden subconscious urges. He described how these were often personified in pagan religions by metaphors such as Orouboros, the dragon that eats its tail, or in his own psychological system by the Anima, an internal female spirit that we project upon women in our lives.
Isn't there a line in an early Cohen song "I stopped a while to watch the dragon eat its tail"?
In Cohen's case, there is a tribal system of archetypes that stems from his Jewish roots. You can see this very strongly in the song "By the River's Dark", where, in contrast to the writer of the psalm, he has forgotten his Jerusalem, and as a result his right arm is withered. It has "lost its cunning". But in contrast, he takes on some
of the power of Babylon.
Babylon has long epitomised the material and physical world, the world of Boogie Street, although it is strengthened spiritually by its own tribal archetypes, and so not purely material. Another song treats Alexandra leaving, passing between the sentries. This makes us think of Alexander the Great's compaigns, in which he was reputed to have crept undiscovered into the enemy camp to guage its strength. Of course both Babylon and Persia were great empires contemporaneous with the tribe of Israel, although Persepolis has apparently only one mention in the Bible.
Alexander's own sayings suggest that he is bringing logic, good governance and fair dealing to the barbaric nations that he conquered.
There is a similar opposition here, between the spiritual Israelites on the one hand, and corrupt Babylon on the other, or alternatively between the humanitarian Greeks and the barbaric Persions. Then of course, the victor always writes the history.
Cohen has always made a very good living from the commercial world of popular music, whilst his songs have always discussed more spiritual things. He has always "crossed the borders".
So we have the opposition of two mighty forces, the "Crown of Light" and "the Darkened One".
The "we" is the result of the resolution of these two forces, in which the personality becomes formed and whole, "englightenment" from a buddhist point of view, or "individuation" from a Jungian standpoint.
Alternatively and more cynically, the spiritual forces that drive us are just characterizations of our own physical urges to eat, have sex and children, and to bring them up in our own culture. When these drives have been reconciled and calmed, in the process of individuation, our life is at an end: "here is your cot, your cardboard and piss" of the hospital bed.
I love the way that Cohen plays with all these different ideas and archetypes, and switches between the spiritual and the cynical.
That surely is the human condition.
The whole LP appears to me to articulate the realization that aside from our daily materialism and satisfaction of bodily needs, there is an inner life of the spirit, Cohen's "Secret Life". Jung talked about our archetypes, powerful metaphors that represent our hidden subconscious urges. He described how these were often personified in pagan religions by metaphors such as Orouboros, the dragon that eats its tail, or in his own psychological system by the Anima, an internal female spirit that we project upon women in our lives. Isn't there a line in an early Cohen song "I stopped a while to watch the dragon eat its tail"?
In Cohen's case, there is a tribal system of archetypes that stems from his Jewish roots. You can see this very strongly in the song "By the River's Dark", where, in contrast to the writer of the psalm, he has forgotten his Jerusalem, and as a result his right arm is withered. It has "lost its cunning". But in contrast, he takes on some of the power of Babylon.
Babylon has long epitomised the material and physical world, the world of Boogie Street, although it is strengthened spiritually by its own tribal archetypes, and so not purely material. Another song treats Alexandra leaving, passing between the sentries. This makes us think of Alexander the Great's compaigns, in which he was reputed to have crept undiscovered into the enemy camp to guage its strength. Of course both Babylon and Persia were great empires contemporaneous with the tribe of Israel, although Persepolis has apparently only one mention in the Bible.
Alexander's own sayings suggest that he is bringing logic, good governance and fair dealing to the barbaric nations that he conquered. There is a similar opposition here, between the spiritual Israelites on the one hand, and corrupt Babylon on the other, or alternatively between the humanitarian Greeks and the barbaric Persions. Then of course, the victor always writes the history.
Cohen has always made a very good living from the commercial world of popular music, whilst his songs have always discussed more spiritual things. He has always "crossed the borders".
So we have the opposition of two mighty forces, the "Crown of Light" and "the Darkened One". The "we" is the result of the resolution of these two forces, in which the personality becomes formed and whole, "englightenment" from a buddhist point of view, or "individuation" from a Jungian standpoint.
Alternatively and more cynically, the spiritual forces that drive us are just characterizations of our own physical urges to eat, have sex and children, and to bring them up in our own culture. When these drives have been reconciled and calmed, in the process of individuation, our life is at an end: "here is your cot, your cardboard and piss" of the hospital bed.
I love the way that Cohen plays with all these different ideas and archetypes, and switches between the spiritual and the cynical. That surely is the human condition.