(no subject)

[lapsedmodernist]

One of my favorite Leonard Cohen songs has always been "Dance Me To the End of Love"--it's one of his waltzes, which somehow falls outside the Leonard Cohen binary of romantic quiet songs (acoustic pieces like Famous Blue Raincoat, Suzanne, If It Be Your Will and dramatic baroque productions (First We Take Manhattan, Everybody Knows, The Future). I always thought the song was so romantic, if I was in the right mood, it could make me swoon.
Yesterday I read about what inspired the song. Apparenly, Leonard was inspired to write the song after visiting Auschwitz and seeing photos/hearing stories of Auschwitz guards making Jewish and Gypsy prisoners perform fake weddings for them, picking out an arbitrary bride and groom and making them "do" a wedding with traditional dances and singing, before burning them.
That gives the first line of the song a new meaning.


Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Apparently, among other places (interviews, introductions of the song on concert bootlegs), this is discussed in David Boucher's book Dylan and Cohen.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Can you tell me, why do you enjoy Leonard Cohen?

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

Can you tell me who you are?

I love Leonard Cohen because he is transcendentally cool He is cool in the way that most people aspire to be, but fail, instead becoming hysterics, or pretentious assholes, or dirty old men, or caricatures, or Ernerst Hemingway.

I love the fact that the over-drama and ambiguity in his songs balance each other out.

My love for him is somewhat overdetermined by the fact that I am a sucker for bards with that kind of voice, but there is a reason why I love Leonard more than, say, Lee Hazelwood, (who is great in his own right).

[la-chispa.livejournal.com]

Woah. I've always loved that one, too.

[akozorez.livejournal.com]

WOW! I am speechless. This too has always been one of my favorite songs. It takes a whole new meaning now... i think i am walking down for a cigarette.


I love Leonard Cohen because he is transcendentally cool He is cool in the way that most people aspire to be, but fail, instead becoming hysterics, or pretentious assholes, or dirty old men, or caricatures, or Ernerst Hemingway. This made my laugh. I think YOU, anthrochica are transcendentally cool :)

p.s. How are your evenings looking this week?

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I think YOU, anthrochica are transcendentally cool :)

Why thank you *bows*

Abt. dinner--how about early-ish dinner tonight? (like, 6.30?) Can you do that? If not, I don't think I can until the weekend...
Let me know on here or call me...I'm going to be at the TV studio until 2.30, but will have email and phone after that.

See you tonight, maybe?

[akozorez.livejournal.com]

damn! i really want to see you (and i don't want to wait all the way until the weekend to do that.) so, here are my dilemmas and possible solutions:

1. i am supposed to meet someone at 6 tonight, (but we see each other all the time, and it will be OK if i cancel, if need be, or meet with them later on).

2. i wanted to bring a pile of stuff for you (had i known i'd be meeting you tonight, i'd taken stuff with me to work and come prepared), whereas now if we mee--i'll come empty-handed.

3. also, if we do get dinner, it would have to be someplace other than on St. Marks--as i don't want my previously scheduled dinner to see me having dinner with you :)

so... whatcha' think of that?

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

hmmm. well. the thing is, I have plans Thursday night and Friday night, and I am not sure about tomorrow...I think I might have stuff to do...but tomorrow dinner could also be a possibility. I don't want to create some complicated scenario for you, and today sounds like that might happen. So should we try to have dinner tomorrow and if that fails, then I guess I guess over the weekend?
I have stuff for you too.

[akozorez.livejournal.com]

yeah... i was going to say the same thing, actually. let's try for tomorrow. but, not a biggie either. if you can't make it--you can't make it. So, for now, let's say tomorrow, and then we'll play it by ear.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

alright then. Funny enough, I think tonight I am going to have dinner with my friend, the other red-haired Anya from Russia. And hopefully I will see you tomorrow!

[theodora.livejournal.com]

This post has fucked me up, but in a good way. Leonard Cohen. The two people who have to my knowledge tried the hardest and the best to convey the horrors of history in some way that allows everything to be there - the doesn't channel the hearer's emotions into simple anger, righteousness, pity, or fear - Leonard Cohen and Thomas Pynchon. The latter may seem unlikely. But there's a depiction he writes of, I think Germans, but maybe some other dispatch of European army, hunting down and massacring, really slowly, a tribe of Herero, that's never going to leave me. Anyway, thanks for this. I'm your man.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I have this problem where I can't read Pynchon. Not that I don't like him, or can't appreciate what he does, my brain just can't process him, physically, like not being able to pick up a frequency outside of one's range. If I start reading Pynchon, I can read a page for hours, start it over 10 times, and I can't get to an end, it's like falling asleep, there is no consciousness of the transformation into a different state, but all of a sudden I realize I haven't been reading for minutes, and I am thinking about something else.

But where is this description?

That's an interesting assessment of Leonard Cohen, I don't know if I agree with it, only because the history he presents is so...iconic. So I guess I can see what you are saying--albeit in a meta-way.

Also, I think that kind of "history" writing takes place in Murakami's Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Ontaadje's Anil's Ghost (I don't like any of his other books, but that one is quite remarkable).

[goddessspiral.livejournal.com]

I'm not familiar with this song but the story you provided as a background to it has peaked my interest.

Is there anyway you can provide the song to listen to? I know I could kazaa it but I'm trying to cut down on the nasty stuff that joins in with that program. Maybe if you have an mp3 of the song I could give you my email and you could send it to me?

*sheepish grin*

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

well, I am sure you could find it on SoulSeek. But give me your email, and if I can figure out how to make it into a sendable MP3 file, I will email it to you.

[goddessspiral.livejournal.com]

SoulSeek, I'm not familiar with that. Is that a program like Kazaa?

And my email is ariadne_vinodeluna@yahoo.com :-)

Thanks!!!

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

sent it; let me know if you get it ok.

I have never used either of those programs myself, but SoulSeek is supposed to be like that but much better. What is wrong with Kazaa?

[goddessspiral.livejournal.com]

I sent you an email back after I got it. Wow. It's a hauntingly beautiful song. I don't know if I was so haunted by it because of the story you provided or just because of how it sounds.

Thanks so much for sending it to me. I really appreciate the effort.

As for Kazaa, it's full of tons of spyware and it likes to take over your computer and run whenever it wants in the deep background. I really try to use it only when I really really want something through it.

:-)

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

yes, I got your email :)
Glad it worked & that you liked the song. It is incredibly beautiful...and the inspiration behind it makes the lyrics chilling, but in a way that makes the song even more amazing. you should listen to more of his stuff!