Home » Twanging, from Homer to Cohen and back: music and poetry

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Twanging, from Homer to Cohen and back: music and poetry — 13 Comments

  1. Damn Neo, I feel like I’m on a tofu diet here. Where’s the red meat?

    Im starvin…

  2. Exactly right. Well said.

    I suspect that you are are a closet poet. I always say that poetry is lyrics written by those who cannot do music, but it is a hybrid….and it just bubbles up out of the soul just as Frost said.

    A blank page is just an invitation. A damn shame that folks do not read poetry, these days. They want the music with it to spice it up.

  3. That Law and Order bit reminds me of Rudy, Neo. Because, when people understand that the Iron Fist of the Punishment and Law is going to inflict pain upon them… they stop misbehaving. Or maybe they are like the terrorists and just abiding their time, to strike at a moment of their choosing, inflicting gross and massive psychological damage.

    Most people like order in their lives. Some prefer the zest and the chaos, because they manage chaos well (combat leaders). But most people are not like that. Most people wish to see order, and that is why the Left preys upon this need for order in order to substitute totalitarianism for peace and prosperity, without people noticing it until it is too late.

  4. Ah you loved me as a loser, but now you’re worried that I just might win

    Everyone likes an underdog right? Heh. Funny thing is, this would apply to everyone from Ami, to Israel, to the terrorists.

    You know the way to stop me, but you don’t have the discipline

    law and order, non-tv non-hollywood version. Authentic

    First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin…

    I think Schroeder already took Berlin didn’t he?

  5. Well I, for one, enjoy some “lighter fare” sometimes. I had never even “heard” of Leonard Cohen before these posts(sorry to say I wasn’t really impressed). But at least I do get why others might like it. Just not my style. Some have mentioned Dylan and they do seem similar from what I’ve seen.

  6. Thanks Lee–yes, I believe that variety is good. I can’t write about war all the time. And even this post has a political twist, as do some of Cohen’s songs.

  7. Remember the battle of Marathon, Neo?

    The Spartans missed that battle because of their religious festival of Carneia, which stipulated that by tradition no war could be made or army mobilized in the 9 days. They would have missed out on Thermopylae as well, but Leonidas chose to mobilize his personal guard anyways.

    If Marathon was the triumph of the Athenians… Thermopylae was definitely the high time of the Spartans.

    In modern terms, Athenians are the Jeffersonians and those who believe in the First Amendment as the most important safeguard against tyranny. But those who believe that the 2nd Amendment secures the rights of man to liberty, would then be represented by Sparta.

    The Spartans were always late to arrive. Far behind the First… but without them, the end would have gone far different for seemingly doomed Greek culture.

    in 2400+ years, Neo, things have not changed, have they? We are still fighting the Persians after all. We are still trying to gather a fragmented West, full of squabling and factionalistic infighting.

    In a sense, humanity itself is the Infinite War.

  8. Pingback:War is Hell but then so is peace « Sake White

  9. The funniest story I ever read about Leonard Cohen was told by the actor Peter Coyote, in his memoir of the sixties counterculture, Sleeping Where I Fall:

    Coyote was visiting the New York apartment of singer Paul Simon, there to pitch a wealthy stockbroker (named “David”) for a big donation to the Digger cause. Leonard Cohen, at the time forging a new career as singer/songwriter, was also in attendance. Just as Coyote was describing the Digger mission, “Suddenly, Leonard Cohen leaped to his feet and announced dramatically, `David, these men are lying. This is not a leaderless group at all. I am a novelist and reader of men. These men are leaders,’ stressing this last word as if it were a communicable disease.” (Sleeping Where I Fall, Washington, 1998, p. 105)

  10. you left out my favorite line from “The Future”:

    “And all the lousy little poets comin’ round
    Tryin’ to sound like Charlie Manson”

    UB

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