http://www.leonardcohenforum.com/
LEONARD COHEN’S “HAPPENS TO THE HEART” DEBUTS TODAY
COLLABORATION WITH NOWNESS ANNOUNCED FOR A VIBRANT VIDEO INTERPRETATION OF COHEN’S MASTERFUL LYRICS
‘Thanks For The Dance’ Available November 22, 2019
After the album's initial taste of "The Goal", "Happens To The Heart" is the first official single from the remarkable new album Thanks For The Dance, an unexpected harvest of new songs from the master, Leonard Cohen. An elegant continuation of his work, Thanks For The Dance was produced by his son Adam Cohen, and engineered and mixed by Michael Chaves.
"Happens To The Heart" features long-time collaborator Javier Mas, who flew from Barcelona to LA to capture the artist’s spirit on Leonard’s own guitar; the Berlin-based stargaze orchestra; famed producer Daniel Lanois on piano; and Zac Rae from Death Cab For Cutie on felt piano. Listen here.
Leonard Cohen is one of the most enduring cultural icons in modern history. His music, writing and art continues to inspire and influence audiences around the world. In celebration of the release of Thanks For The Dance, Nowness has collaborated with Adam Cohen, to commission new moving-image works from a global roster of filmmakers and visual artists selected from the Nowness universe. Thanks for the Dance: Artistic Responses to Leonard Cohen, offers a distinct video representation of the music that inspires and accompanies it, an interpretation of Cohen’s life and lyrics that is deeply personal to each filmmaker involved.
Directed and conceived by Daniel Askill, “Happens To The Heart” extends Cohen’s storytelling and explores the core thematics of his poetic lyrics. Askill, known for artistic creations using film, photographs, video installation and sculpture in his work, has directed short films, commercials, fashion films and music videos (Sia, Placebo, Phoenix). Here Askill takes the viewer on a mysterious path, following a figure as he walks, reflects and resolves, to a moment of mindful peace.
"The idea came quickly and effortlessly on my first listening to the music…. I wanted to make something that spoke to Leonard’s years as a Zen Monk. A quiet symbolic visual narrative that would chart the letting go of ego and the trappings of fame... and the transition into something pure and transcendent…"
- Daniel Askil
It's been three years since we lost Leonard Cohen, but his music lives on through his son, Adam. Father and son had worked together on the 2016 album You Want It Darker, and at his father's request, Adam fleshed out some leftover sketches of songs with the help of Beck, Feist, Damien Rice, The National’s Bryce Dessner, and more. The results appear on the forthcoming full-length Thanks For The Dance, out November 22nd via Columbia/Legacy.
“In composing and arranging the music for his words, we chose his most characteristic musical signatures, in this way keeping him with us,” said Adam in a press release. “What moves me most about the album is the startled response of those who have heard it. ‘Leonard lives’! they say, one after the other.”
Today, they share the single “Happens to the Heart” via a video directed by Daniel Askill. “I wanted to make something that spoke to Leonard’s years as a zen monk,” Askill said in a statement. “This film is a quiet, symbolic narrative that charts the letting go of ego and the trappings of fame.”
Just to take it a bit further below are comparison lines -Heather1969 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2019 4:22 pm Hi Gerhard
Leonard does indeed say
I got my shit together
And
Meeting Christ AND reading Marx
Hope that helps
Heather
I think they like it!
The New York Times
The Playlist: Frank Ocean’s Pillow Talk, and 12 More New Songs
Hear tracks by Leonard Cohen, the Bad Plus, Selena Gomez and others.
By Jon Pareles, Jon Caramanica, Caryn Ganz and Giovanni Russonello
Oct. 25, 2019
Leonard Cohen, ‘Happens to the Heart’
Leonard Cohen left behind unfinished songs when he died in 2016, and his son and producer, Adam Cohen, has completed them for an album, “Thanks for the Dance,” which will be released Nov. 22. A version of “Happens to the Heart” was published in the 2018 book “The Flame,” but Cohen was still improving it when he recorded this performance. The music is gorgeously realized; Cohen intones his lyrics with clear implications of melody, and the track fleshes them out with an orchestra, an acoustic guitar hinting at flamenco and a melancholy piano line. “Happens to the Heart” sounds like vintage Cohen: somber and sly, invoking the spiritual alongside the mundane, making paradoxes profound.
Now the angel’s got a fiddle
The devil’s got a harp
Every soul is like a minnow
Every mind is like a shark
Me, I’ve broken every window
But the house, the house is dark
I care, but very little
What happens to the heart.
PARELES
Seems that the 2019 new single is based on the recording around the production of Popular Problems.How do you know when a song’s working?
You can pretty well tell. We play it for select people, like my daughter – there’s a few people who aren’t afraid to tell you that it isn’t working. We had another song on the album, which was called “Happens to the Heart,” which will be on the next album. It’s a very good lyric, a very good tune, but we didn’t nail it. So we didn’t put each other on about it – not for more than a week or two. “You know, this song really doesn’t make it.” “Thank God you said that, Pat, because I can’t stand it.”
I saw the movie Joker last week. It was not a funny movie.peter danielsen wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2019 8:44 pm Wonderful song, music and lyric
Not sure if I like the video. It seems to sugest some peaceful ending, which sort of contradict the lyrics
Peter
WiTS, That does make sense and you probably know that two of the poem lines vary even though both versions (The Files and The Flame) have the same date on them. It does make you wonder what was written whenWiTS wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2019 8:39 am I guess the lyric version is much older than the poem.
In a Sep 14, 2014 article of Rolling Stone:
was finally solved to arrive at this moment in time.Yes, Beverly, this really gives me a puzzle.
This might be helpful/Insightful?B4real wrote: ↑Sun Oct 27, 2019 3:01 am And thanks for the reminder about that interview
I do recall reading it when was first released and I think there’s another one somewhere saying something similar about Happens To The Heart. Here LC says that both the lyric and the tune were very good, so I wonder how/why they didn’t “nail it." Maybe the tune didn’t compliment the lyrics or vice versa – individually they were both very good but didn’t sync with each other then. It would be good to know the process how that Popular Problem
When I first saw this poem on 26 August 2016 and also not so very long ago, those two lines I’ve mentioned above with the (& words in brackets) were originally listed there, hence the reason for my thoughts and words about them. Maybe I shouldn't have noticed the differences - sorry if it's caused any confusion! Oh, Treaty, LOVE the song very much. It is indeed a "nail it" song.B4real wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2019 8:07 am Btw- In that first 2014 interview you posted, LC also mentions that there was one particular song he’d like to finish before he dies. He says it’s a lovely melody that he’s been trying for a good 15 years to find the accompanying suitable words. With the benefit of hindsight, I reckon that should read nearly double those years and he was referring to Treaty about which you could most definitely say that “nail it” applies here! And how could he possibly leave out that wonderful melody String/ Reprise Treaty! Ah, perfection does take time and circumstance to be realised!