leonardcohenforum.com

Tchoc

to consider you as a chatbot (what ever that is) is outside of my realm of experience.

now "granny" is totally acceptable.

you are a real person right.

david

I am not a real chatbot.

This said, I am still pretty virtual. For a human.

There is many events organized on this forum where fans met and chat in the flesh. I can believe that those occasions would provide you even more interesting conversation and company. Just have a look around.


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Lorca:
There is a fragment of tomorrow
in the museum of winter frost

No future, again. At least a future with a missing piece which is the dead love or the dead lover (as a symbol as well).
This missing piece is now entered in the memory, and in the cold of the death.

Cohen :
There's a piece that was torn from the morning,
and it hangs in the Gallery of Frost

Change of time.
tomorrow is now the morning of the present time. What was death with Lorca appears to be "just" a wound, with Cohen.

No need to mention that Cohen's translation is a free translation, not a literal translation. This is extremely difficult to perform a free translation of this quality.

Nowhere he is betraying Federico Garcia Lorca's version. In the contrary there is a true reverence for his poetry and a huge hommage in his free translation, that would not have been possible with a literal translation.

It is amazing. (He is a genius.) (With hours and hours of work in addition to this. Otherwise such a a a Masterpiece would not have been possible. Impossible.)

Lorca :
In Vienna there are ten little girls
a shoulder for death to cry on
and a forest of dried pigeons.
There is a fragment of tomorrow
in the museum of winter frost.
There is a thousand-windowed dance hall.

Ay, ay, ay, ay!
Take this close-mouthed waltz.


Cohen :

Now in Vienna there are ten pretty women.
There's a shoulder where death comes to cry.
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows.
There's a tree where the doves go to die.
There's a piece that was torn from the morning,
and it hangs in the Gallery of Frost --
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws.

Source :
http://www.webheights.net/speakingcohen/waltz.htm


Cohen made it a Kabbalistic introduction as stressed by Holydove. I do believe he performed this by changing the order in the sequence of images provided by Lorca.

I tend to acknowledge Byron's feeling in regard of the line : There's a tree where the doves go to die.

There is an interruption of peace. A war, a misunderstanding.

And then the wound (but not the death)


*

Lorca :
Ay, ay, ay, ay!
Take this close-mouthed waltz.


The dance (of life) became a silence, the silence of death.

Cohen :
take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws.

The dance (of life) is still in action, it was just reduced to silence, to hunger, to weakness.

[quote="river’s disguise"]
(This pause coudl be the end of one part of the story)
2nd Part of the Story
Oh I want you, I want you, I want you (Sounds liek someone is fallen in love)
On a chair with a dead magazine (He's willing to take her anywhere and the dead magazine a tribute to the fallen soldier/s no inhabitions at all)
In the cave at the tip of the lily (Now it gets naughty...This ones almost self explanitory provided you know that the "lily" is another term for and womans...*clears throat* So yeah to make love...)
In some hallways where love’s never been (Not only to make love but to take her virginaty away. I coudl get graphic and explain in detail but I don't think I need, should nor have to.)
On a bed where the moon has been sweating (From evening to morning...or in other terms.."All night long!")
In a cry filled with footsteps and sand (No clue)
Ay, ay, ay, ay (The crys of love making)
Take this waltz, take this waltz (He's presenting a forum of love...a waltz...)


Here I like very much River's disguise feelings about the song for the secular side.

Although I think that :

"In some hallways were love never been" means virgin because it was never explored, new ways of exploring our love, of making love.

The chair in this context brings me to a throne image, and the dead magazine to an obsolete network for an ideology - or a way of thinking, a new start.

"In a cry filled with footsteps and sand" brings me the image of the ocean, the romantic making love by the sea, with all the playing during the preliminaries.

*


I also see a spiritual side to the secular one ( it would have been a surprise if not! )

Lily being also the equivalent of the lotus flower, the connection of the human mind with the divine. Exploring new ways of Love never been known.


"On a bed where the moon has been sweating" gives me to see : in the clear light of the day after the struggles to get out of the shadow(s).

I want you I want you I want you on a chair (throne) speaks for itself. The dead magazine being all the errors of thinking that will not be done again.

and the cry filled with footseps and sand brings me to this rather big image (and that will be enough for today , before I get lost (really lost) in translation ) :


One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the LORD. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, one belonging to him and the other to the LORD.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times of his life.

This really bothered him and he questioned the LORD about it. "LORD you said that once I decided to follow you, you'd walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life there is only one set of footprints. I don't understand why when I needed you most you would leave me."

The LORD replied, "My precious, precious child, I Love you and I would never leave you! During your times of trial and suffering when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."

Good evening all,

JEEZ.......YOU LOT !!!!

This is really heavy going for me.....lol.

I'm able to decipher Pink Floyd stuff with some ease ( well, I think I can ) but Leonards work is.....erm.......challenging.

Thankyou for your helpful replies to my first post earlier in the thread.

I think for me, the lyrics to 'Take This Waltz' are so tied in with the original poetic background, that I'd do well to read up on the subject.

I was thinking about this on the way home from work in the car, with 'Take This Waltz' repeating for the umpteenth time, and it feels like I've opened a door here to a whole new world of music and poetry......time to explore this new room properly I think !

Kindest Regards,

Dave

Ah! Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon (what else!) I like that, though I don't listen to it anymore. I used to listen Led Zeppelin a lot also around this time.

Leonard Cohen's songs, well...

"He (Leonard Cohen) said that songwriting involved "perseverance, perspiration, but also a certain kind of grace and illumination."

From time to time I allow myself to share some thoughts of mine about his work, well, for the part that I know and appreciate, but as I feel a little bit too strongly the illumation side of his art work, I took the time to regain a, let say, sobriety, being carried on an extactic mood like I am. Especially by Take this Waltz.

I guess that this is why I prefer to talk seriously about all this in a non-serious-at-all manner, over here, it is because, I am not exactly in my ordinary mood when I enter in this specific dimension of arts. And I don't want to be, also. It is like taking a dip into water and get back on the ground after, refreshed.