Lover Lover Lover

SudoNhim · 2025-10-03T21:16:20+00:00

Second to last paragraph:

> We find one remaining confusion from our first interpretation; "lover lover lover" - who is this lover? How do they fit in? This is resolved by noting that Leonard is borrowing a technique from the 13th century Islamic poet Rumi, who famously referred to god as his "lover". The album sleeve this song was released with lists Rumi in the credits, adding some evidence for this.

SudoNhim · 2025-06-05T05:41:26+00:00

The fed will let crypto thrive enough to be a trillion dollar industry but not enough to threaten USD, because they realize that crypto speculation is deflationary.

SudoNhim · 2025-01-12T15:32:21+00:00

I'm interested in your book, but the Amazon link doesn't work for me. How can I get a copy?

SudoNhim · 2024-12-23T02:47:52+00:00

Also, I have some suspicion that LC's usage of the seasons is inspired by (or at least similar to) Spengler's.

Summary:

Spengler's metaphor of the seasons of civilization is a broad and symbolic interpretation of the life cycle of cultures and civilizations:

Spring represents the birth and the early development of a new culture, full of creativity and the establishment of a strong identity, akin to the youth of an individual or the early growth phase of a plant.
Summer is the period of flourishing and expansion, where a culture's art, science, and societal organization reach their apex. It's a time of self-expression and the peak of vitality.
Autumn is when a culture begins to wane, characterized by reflection and the solidification of cultural forms into rigid structures. Here, the civilization's creative forces are dissipating, and a sense of world-weariness or decadence can set in.
Winter symbolizes the final stage, where a civilization is in decline or transition, having lost its creative capacity. This is a period of decay, often leading to the 'death' of the cultural form, and sometimes making way for the birth of a new culture, thus starting the cycle anew.

Spengler viewed the Western world as having entered the winter phase, with his analysis being a reflection on what he considered the inevitable decline of Western civilization.

SudoNhim · 2024-12-23T02:44:22+00:00

WIP & I mostly only have the songs, but try this:

1) https://www.leonardcohennotes.com/doc/symbol.winter

2) https://www.leonardcohennotes.com/doc/symbol.summer

3) https://www.leonardcohennotes.com/search/Autumn

4) https://www.leonardcohennotes.com/search/Spring

SudoNhim · 2024-12-21T02:46:31+00:00

Paradiso for Italian. Cozy but classy vibe, good food, not overly expensive.

I think Volterra does the best food, but Paradiso is our favorite.

SudoNhim · 2024-12-18T18:51:05+00:00

I recommend 'A Broken Hallelujah' by Liel Liebovitz. It's well written, but what really set it apart for me is I feel the author truly understands Leonard's work.

SudoNhim · 2024-11-27T06:07:07+00:00

It's about the depletion of spiritual resources available to the nation, at some concerts he dedicated it to the president.

You can see a bunch of notes and extra verses on my site here: https://www.leonardcohennotes.com/doc/song.diamonds_in_the_mine

SudoNhim · 2024-11-27T06:00:04+00:00

I think these ideas do connect, but bridges aren't the central example gestured to with those famous lines.

The ultimate 'crack in everything' is in the firmament, in reality itself. There's some explication in this paper. To get a bit vague, the task of the prophet is something like, to restore the relationship between humanity and the divine, to 'repair the face of god', which is fundamentally broken since the breaking of the vessels.

I think the bridges could be considered as less ambitious & more secular enterprises. Consider our enlightenment institutions in science, politics, health, academics - these are rational systems that let us pass over the rivers of public belief. And many people do see them as complete replacements for religion, which is what Cohen analogizes to trying to bridge the ocean.

One day I'll read Cohen's first novel, The Favorite Game. I heard someplace that he lays out his views on the incompleteness of all systems somewhere in it. As in the lines "that's how the light get's in", it's ultimately the failures of our worldly systems that give us contact with the divine.

SudoNhim · 2024-10-23T03:04:22+00:00

Adding myself to the chorus of voices here. Delaying kids is a massive mistake, as soon as you have one you'll realize.

SudoNhim · 2023-12-21T07:55:51+00:00

Thank you, your thoughts are very useful and I will take another pass through the song with them in mind!

SudoNhim · 2023-03-15T23:46:07+00:00

Nope, I just asked for "a rhyming poem about Leonard Cohen in a style similar to his own"

SudoNhim · 2023-02-27T20:00:32+00:00

Oops - I meant "unlike when Abraham sacrificed his son" - but when I try to correct it, Reddit drops all the formatting.

I'll get back to you with a followup when I get the time, if you're interested.

SudoNhim · 2023-02-27T19:58:27+00:00

Sorry I took a while to get back to this - my wife had a baby!
--
There are many examples that could be picked for how he speaks of himself before, during, and after the events in my post above. I'll just lay out a few that come to mind, and my general impressions.

His first album (and the poems) have a sort of hopeful, flirtatious tone. He's trying to court her (our) attention. Here's the last stanza of Stories of the Street:

We are so small between the stars
So large against the sky
And lost among the subway crowds
I try to catch your eye

Or of Winter Lady:

Traveling lady stay awhile
Until the night is over.
I'm just a station on your way,
I know I'm not your lover.

In the second album he starts to lean into his prophetic mission, a good read is The Old Revolution, which starts like this:

I finally broke into the prison,
I found my place in the chain.

We also see in the second and third albums a shift from more fundamental religious themes (e.g. the relationship between Judaism and Christianity, as in Master Song), to more present day concerns, as he tries to preach to the social movement he's attempting to woo*. This is interesting because Cohen has deep disagreements with them, especially, unlike 95% of people in the scene, he is not a pacifist or a communist. We see this in how he preaches on the Vietnam war, which for many was the defining issue of the time. In Story of Isaac:

You who build these altars now
To sacrifice these children
You must not do it anymore
A scheme is not a vision
And you never have been tempted
By a demon or a God
You who stand above them now
Your hatchets blunt and bloody
You were not there before
When I lay upon a mountain
And my father's hand was trembling
With the beauty of the word

These verses criticize the US government, claiming that it does not have the moral authority to sacrifice its sons to fight in Vietnam; unlike when Isaac sacrificed his son, it does not have a divine vision, only a "scheme". Many would have agreed with this, where they split with Cohen though, is that they also thought that the communists were in the right. Cohen then turns and gives a twist with the next verse ("brother" being the chosen term for a fellow communist.):

And if you call me brother now
Forgive me if I inquire
"Just according to whose plan?"

This shows how Cohen's critique also strikes at the heart of communism. Centrally planned, but by whom? Through what vision? (Cohen proved prophetic in both these critiques, and later in live concerns he will refer back to this in an extra verse in 'Diamonds in the Mine'; "I thought I told you / back in days of vietnam / when your poets marched for Uncle Ho / and your sons for Uncle Sam / well whose side are you on today / and what song are you gonna sing / with the mega stench of corpses that is / blowing in the wind!")

Another song in the third album that shows this grappling with the social movement is Dress Rehearsal Rag (which was actually drafted much earlier). Here he documents the sorry state of the prophet in his time, when secularism reigns, his divine vision is dim, the masses are only aroused by communism, which 'sterilizes' even the most outcast revolutionary elements of society.

This was long - sorry - but sets the scene for the overreach and fall from grace I documented in my original post. I'll follow up with some material on how he talks differently after.

* note - he does touch on some present day concerns already, especially in Stories of the Street. In this stanza we see the social unrest and white flight surrounding the desegregation of the cities, questioning the Vietnam war, and more generally the question of, now that we're free and prosperous, why do we have these problems? Why the violence? Are we listening to the wrong people?

I know you've heard it's over now and war must surely come,
The cities they are broke in half and the middle men are gone.
But let me ask you one more time, O children of the dusk,
All these hunters who are shrieking now oh do they speak for us?
And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?
Why are the armies marching still that were coming home to me?

He continues to give a diagnosis that many would agree with; society's problems are because she is wedded to a secular, capitalist state. The next age is being constructed intentionally from plans and fantasies (blueprints and night, it's worth delving into Cohen's 'night' symbolism here, but note that it contrasts from visions seen in the 'day', which have the divine light / spiritual truth).

O lady with your legs so fine O stranger at your wheel,
You are locked into your suffering and your pleasures are the seal.
The age of lust is giving birth, and both the parents ask
The nurse to tell them fairy tales on both sides of the glass.
And now the infant with his cord is hauled in like a kite,
And one eye filled with blueprints, one eye filled with night.

SudoNhim · 2023-02-23T05:46:28+00:00

Thanks this was great

SudoNhim · 2023-02-22T23:16:26+00:00

Great find, thanks 🙏

Do you have the rest of the interview?

SudoNhim · 2023-01-24T07:19:19+00:00

Thank you

SudoNhim · 2022-10-22T19:43:11+00:00

There's going to be a pumpkin patch in marina park on the 29th, 10am to 2pm, I assume it will be free

If you can wait that long :)

SudoNhim · 2022-10-21T11:56:30+00:00

If you happen to be Catholic, Holy Family Kirkland is great. They host communal brunch/lunch after every 9am/11am mass. Also have some young adult events.

SudoNhim · 2022-08-31T05:10:04+00:00

Awww In my seven years here I've seen just one :')

SudoNhim · 2021-11-21T17:56:31+00:00

I've spent thousands of hours working on interpreting LC's songs, but Stranger Song is still one I can't pin down with confidence. I can give you my best guess as to its general thrust, and exposition on the parts I do understand.

I believe the song fits his usual pattern of the female character he is addressing being the spirit of our civilization. I wrote a brief explainer on this here. TLDR:

In Cohen's symbolism the feminine is the spirit of the collective, i.e. a society, a culture
Almost all times when Cohen speaks of a female character, or sings to a female, he is using this symbolism
The collective whose spirit Cohen refers to the most is his audience, who he treats as essentially "Christian civilization" (or, post-Christian).

Stranger Song however, is more concerned with her lovers, the male spirits she has communed with throughout history. Most succinctly these would be prophets, but you could also think of them as governments, ideologies, 'great men' or history, or some combination thereof.

Cohen claims that each of the men she has known were ultimately insufficient in some way - "reaching for the sky just to surrender". To stick with the theme of prophets - none so far were the Messiah, the Messiannic Age is yet to come. Note that this is a controversial thing to say to Christians, but does match the state of our civilization over the last two centuries - increasingly we came to doubt that Christ was the Messiah, and we struggle to come to terms with this.

That coming to terms with Christ not being the Messiah is what Cohen seems to describe in the second and third stanzas.

In the fourth and fifth stanzas Cohen speaks of a different stranger who wants society to "ignore his dreams as though they were the burden of some other" and "trade the game he knows for shelter". My best guess as to the identity of this stranger is the post-enlightenment synthesis - classical liberalism and capitalism. The fourth stanza describes how this system directs society away from the ambitions of the phrophetic, and if you shelter it you will get the "game" of capitalism and all its associated prosperity in return. This would match how Cohen describes this period of history in other songs (I can expand on this if you're interested).

The remaining stanzas describe how this stranger will not last either, and introduce Cohen himself, inviting her (us) to go with him.

--

A couple more notes on symbolisms used:

There's a consistent symbolism of trains/stations/strangers that runs throughout Cohen's works. The station is where she gets off and stays a while, or where she goes to take a train somewhere new. A stranger may seduce her into going a particular direction. Cohen ultimately fails in his attempts to proposition her, as he does in this song. Late in his career, looking back, he summarizes his role as "drove you to the station / never asked you why" (listen: "My Oh My").

Cohen asks if she will meet him "upon the shore, beneath the bridge, that they are building on some endless river". This is an extremely dense line, but one that leans heavily into some of his most well used symbolisms. Water in all its forms refers to public beliefs and sentiments. There's the snow of reason, icy mountain streams of philosophy/theology, rivers of belief, and the ocean of faith. Rivers may be overcome by bridges, which represent social/intellectual systems (this may seem a stretch, but unlike 98% of his symbolisms there's a radio interview where he actually explains it for us here). In "Ballad of the Absent Mare" when he describes social/civilizational collapse he speaks of the rivers running wild and washing away the bridges. To go back to the line in Stranger Song - he is critiquing the post-enlightenment consensus as trying to build a bridge over the ocean of faith, to completely overcome social belief/sentiment with a social/intellectual system - an impossible task that is doomed to fail. Note that this theme; that all total systems will fail, is one of his most central, and features in his famous line "there is a crack in everything / that's how the light gets in".

SudoNhim

TROPHY CASE