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Aug. 3rd, 2004 01:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lapsedmodernistOne 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.
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.
