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Aug. 3rd, 2004 01:35 amOne 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 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 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.
