I think all of them (I will have to look it up in my Cohen poems) might be from the same poem, they're just not all in the same song. If that makes any sense. I can't find my book right now, though. *sigh* There's a sign of the sad state of affairs of my soul. :p My poetry books are missing and my tarot decks are in a plastic tub shoved under the bed. Argh.
There's something about his poems that they just go missing. My mother lost "Spice Box of Earth" way back, and mourned it for years. (I did find her a replacement copy eventually...)
One thing this exercise pointed out to me is that I respond more to the lyric of a song than to anything else. Yes, it has to be tuneful and it helps if the singer has a good voice, but it's the words that hook my soul.
That makes perfect sense. Having paid attention to the words now properly, I find myself wishing that if he'd wanted to start incorporating elemsnts from the three stanzas used in the "Buckley" version in his performance, he'd found a way to rewrite so as to still sing elemsnts of the two stanzas discarded in that version. ...were horses...
Hmm. as the culprit du jour, I think I can safely point out that even when you are trying to be straightforward, the personal affront you spkoe of yesterday shows through. I had said "Hmm. Have you heard...", not "Oh, but have you heard..." -- I was making no recommendation, just wondering.
I must confess that I had no idea that the Wainwright and Buckley versions shared the same lyric -- I've not heard the Wainwright version but in passing -- but more to the point I must confess that I hadn't listened closely enough to realize how much had been taken away to make room for what was added in that version.
You can take affront at this too, but I find the original over-produced. The song is a personal declaration if it's anything, and all those layers and all those singers to me get in the way of that sense of one man singing from the heart.
That's probably why so many have gone for stark arrangements when singing the song -- but to me, that's not right either, not really. If the song is about anything, it's about a connection that's
( ... )
What's your Meyers-Briggs, hon? I can't imagine, given how long you've worked in a touchy-feely environment like the University, that you've never taken the 'test.'
I did take the real MBTI once, but that was half a lifetime ago. Back then, I really didn't want to be put in a box, and if I could theoretically see the value of a great variety of people with different strengths (and weaknesses), I had much less respect for the actuality than I do now. At that time I was slammed right over on I, N, and P, and wavered a bit closer to T than F. Nowadays, I'm just as solid on N and P, but I'm much more comfortable with letting myself be as F as I am, and while I'll never be E, E doesn't scare me so much, and there are days when I feel comfortable being all about what's around me for almost all of the day.
When it comes to sinking into sound more than lyrics, though, trying to look myself straight in the eye I have to wonder how much of that is a matter of protecting myself from the full strength of the total effect. You know the title of the The Jam record? Words can do more.
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One thing this exercise pointed out to me is that I respond more to the lyric of a song than to anything else. Yes, it has to be tuneful and it helps if the singer has a good voice, but it's the words that hook my soul.
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I must confess that I had no idea that the Wainwright and Buckley versions shared the same lyric -- I've not heard the Wainwright version but in passing -- but more to the point I must confess that I hadn't listened closely enough to realize how much had been taken away to make room for what was added in that version.
You can take affront at this too, but I find the original over-produced. The song is a personal declaration if it's anything, and all those layers and all those singers to me get in the way of that sense of one man singing from the heart.
That's probably why so many have gone for stark arrangements when singing the song -- but to me, that's not right either, not really. If the song is about anything, it's about a connection that's ( ... )
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When it comes to sinking into sound more than lyrics, though, trying to look myself straight in the eye I have to wonder how much of that is a matter of protecting myself from the full strength of the total effect. You know the title of the The Jam record? Words can do more.
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I don't like the Wainright or Buckley versions, but I love the k. d. lang version, and of course, Cohen's.
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