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second-hand smegma posted:To this day I get tears in my eyes every time I listen to The Old Revolution. Holy gently caress it's the saddest song. Guess that's my cue... (the text for my last av was "of course I was very young / and I thought that we were winning" so at least I'll be ready if I ever get BRTed). I'm sure I'm not the only 90s kid who got his first Cohen exposure through that Christian Slater movie. Then the great write up in my teenage Bible, the Spin Alternative Record Guide (his write-up opens with the shout-out in "Pennyroyal Tea"). Then hearing a pretty stoned version of "Suzanne" on the Isle of Wight retrospective album. Then finding my dad's copy of Songs From A Room and the "music, words, and photographs" Songs of Leonard Cohen sheet music book. But what made me into a Cohen-phile was a incredibly painful, protracted breakup from an emotionally abusive relationship. The salve for this open wound was my discovery of tequila and Songs of Love and Hate. Which I listened to over and over and over and... I had no idea about this "Hallelujah " thing until I'd already been a fan for years. The first version of that I heard was the man responsible for the "cheeky verses" arrangement we all know, John Cale. His version is the only one I listen to, not for his great voice or unearthly gift of melody, but because his Welsh accent covers up some pretty sloppy rhymes. Okay, that other stuff, too. I've got the complete studio recordings box set, but aside from the first four records which I already had learned by heart, I haven't ventured past Death of a Ladies Man and Beautiful Losers. I'm sure I'll love them when I get to them, but... Good God, those first three albums.
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Jan 18, 2015 01:32
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| # ¿ May 18, 2024 08:58 |
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second-hand smegma posted:Yeah, I worked at a record store for 4 years and my boss introduced me to the rear cover art of Songs of Leonard Cohen which basically sold me before I even heard the music. Then I heard Songs From a Room which is usually rated kind of low compared to the first one, but each song on that one is so intimate and devastating. Safe to say I absolutely love your av+customtitle combo. Gee, thanks. I used to have this pic I took in a cemetery near Baltimore and the text "of course I was very young and I thought that we were winning" because I'm just a miserable bastard like that. I'm an iconoclast in that I rank the first three albums as "great", "even better", and "holy poo poo!" It's interesting to hear how he handled the accompaniment . Songs of Leonard Cohen was intended to be just vocals and guitar, and Cohen fought with producer John Simon over the added instrumentals, eventually remixing it as best he could. In Songs From A Room, he takes the idea of added instruments and runs with it, leading to one of the most unique-sounding records I've ever heard (boing-boing-boing). Songs of Love and Hate has it all down, both lyrically and musically. Production, arrangement... Man, I could talk about that record all day, but instead I'll just link this. Sure, it's the one everyone knows, but that doesn't make it any less great. My favorite track off that one, though, is "Sing Another Song Boys", which really got my hopes up for the complete Isle of Wight performance where it was recorded. Sadly, as they didn't go on until early in the morning, you hear an exhausted band struggling through songs from the first two albums, often losing their place and slooooowing down. It's not a bad album, especially for some fantastic between-song banter ("are you calling me a fascist pig again?"), but it wasn't the revelation I wanted it to be.
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Jan 22, 2015 15:12
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