A montanha mágica

sábado, setembro 18, 2004

2 He will be 70 on Tuesday, the first of the 1960s singer-songwriters to reach 70. He was born in 1934, shortly before Elvis Presley.

6. On That Day

Words and music by Leonard Cohen
and Anjani Thomas

Some people say
It`s what we deserve
For sins against g-d
For crimes in the world
I wouldn`t know
I?m just holding the fort
Since that day
They wounded New York
Some people say
They hate us of old
Our women unveiled
Our slaves and our gold
I wouldn`t know
I`m just holding the fort
But answer me this
I won`t take you to court
Did you go crazy
Or did you report
On that day
On that day
They wounded New York

Produced by Anjani Thomas
Vocals and Jew`s harp: Leonard Cohen
Background vocals arranged and
sung by Anjani Thomas
Piano: Anjani Thomas
Bass: Stan Sargent

© 2004 Old Ideas LLC (BMI) and
Little Fountain Music (BMI)

As the godfather of gloom turns 70, Tim de Lisle describes his brush with death - and lists 69 other things you may not know about him

9 Cohen was 32 and an established poet and novelist before deciding that songwriting might pay better. When he first touted his songs around New York, agents said to him: "Aren't you a little old for this game?"

70 In 1994, Cohen said: "If you're going to think of yourself in this game, or in this tradition, and you start getting a swelled head about it, then you've really got to think about who you're talking about. You're not just talking about Randy Newman, who's fine, or Bob Dylan, who's sublime, you're talking about King David, Homer, Dante, Milton, Wordsworth, you're talking about the embodiment of our highest possibility. So I don't think it's particularly modest or virtuous to think of oneself as a minor poet. I really do feel the enormous luck I've had in being able to make a living, and to never have had to have written one word that I didn't want to write.

"But I don't fool myself, I know the game I'm in. When I wrote about Hank Williams 'A hundred floors above me in the tower of song', it's not some kind of inverse modesty. I know where Hank Williams stands in the history of popular song. Your Cheatin' Heart, songs like that, are sublime, in his own tradition, and I feel myself a very minor writer. I've taken a certain territory, and I've tried to maintain it and administrate it with the very best of my capacities. And I will continue to administrate this tiny territory until I'm too weak to do it. But I understand where this territory is."

posted by Luís Miguel Dias sábado, setembro 18, 2004

Comments: Enviar um comentário