It's true that all the men you knew were dealers Who said they were through with dealing Every time you gave them shelter I know that kind of man It's hard to hold the hand of anyone Who is reaching for the sky just to surrender Who is reaching for the sky just to surrender
And then sweeping up the jokers that he left behind You find he did not leave you very much not even laughter Like any dealer he was watching for the card That is so high and wild He'll never need to deal another He was just some Joseph looking for a manger He was just some Joseph looking for a manger
And then leaning on your window sill He'll say one day you caused his will To weaken with your love and warmth and shelter And then taking from his wallet An old schedule of trains, he'll say "I told you when I came I was a stranger I told you when I came I was a stranger"
But now another stranger seems To want you to ignore his dreams As though they were the burden of some other O you've seen that man before His golden arm dispatching cards But now it's rusted from the elbow to the finger And he wants to trade the game he plays for shelter Yes he wants to trade the game he knows for shelter
Ah you hate to watch another tired man Lay down his hand Like he was giving up the holy game of poker And while he talks his dreams to sleep You notice there's a highway That is curling up like smoke above his shoulder It's curling just like smoke above his shoulder
You tell him to come in sit down But something makes you turn around The door is open, you can't close your shelter You try the handle of the road It opens do not be afraid It's you my love, you who are the stranger It is you my love, you who are the stranger
"Well, I've been waitin', I was sure We'd meet between the trains we're waitin' for I think it's time to board another Please understand, I never had a secret chart To get me to the heart of this Or any other matter" When he talks like this you don't know what he's after When he speaks like this you don't know what he's after
"Let's meet tomorrow if you choose Upon the shore, beneath the bridge That they are building on some endless river" Then he leaves the platform For the sleeping car that's warm You realize, he's only advertising one more shelter And it comes to you, he never was a stranger And you say, "Ok, the bridge or someplace later"
And then sweeping up the jokers that he left behind You find he did not leave you very much not even laughter Like any dealer he was watching for the card That is so high and wild He'll never need to deal another He was just some Joseph looking for a manger He was just some Joseph looking for a manger
And then leaning on your window sill He'll say one day you caused his will To weaken with your love and warmth and shelter And then taking from his wallet An old schedule of trains, he'll say "I told you when I came I was a stranger I told you when I came I was a stranger I told you when I came I was a stranger I told you when I came I was a stranger"
Kanye West is not Picasso I am Picasso Kanye West is not Edison I am Edison I am Tesla Jay-Z is not the Dylan of anything I am the Dylan of anything I am the Kanye West of Kanye West The Kanye West Of the great bogus shift of bullshit culture From one boutique to another I am Tesla I am his coil The coil that made electricity soft as a bed I am the Kanye West Kanye West thinks he is When he shoves your ass off the stage I am the real Kanye West I don't get around much anymore I never have I only come alive after a war And we have not had it yet
Super 8, so grainy some TV channels used the City Sickness video with this song. My favourite tindersticks film. Our second with Martin Wallace. Features Matt, our then tour manager, merchandise chap, and Ilona, who we knew from the Rough Trade shop. Also features Stuart's daughter, Sidonie again, now up on her feet. The middle eight pub scene was great fun, putting the band together from friends, getting our promoter Big Ray, to DJ. Dickon's brother plays bass. None of us appear in the film. And the end result is a joy every time I see it.
Music video by Leonard Cohen performing Traveling Light. (C) 2017 Sony Music Entertainment
It wasn’t an email from God, but it was close. Leonard Cohen had written to ask if Gideon Zelermyer, the cantor of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim near Montreal — Cohen’s childhood synagogue — was interested in recording with him.
Zelermyer was soon sitting inside the synagogue’s sanctuary with a few members of Shaar’s all-male choir, playing with different arrangements for “You Want It Darker,” the title track of Cohen’s 14th and final studio album. Some of the words Cohen had given them to work with were familiar; they were borrowed from two of Judaism’s holiest prayers. One is the Kaddish, recited by mourners after the death of a loved one. The other is the High Holy Days prayer Hineni — literally, “Here I am” — a personal entreaty to God, the worshiper asking plaintively for mercy. The choir’s voices are the first sounds you hear on the album, their ethereal harmonics giving way to sparse instrumentation and Cohen’s weary, subterranean growl, then returning to back up the song’s choruses and final movement.
This was hardly the first time that Cohen had drawn on his Judaism for his music. Though he had a complicated relationship with his religious inheritance, it provided a natural vocabulary for him; it was what he knew, and its stories of human suffering and, occasionally, redemption suited his poet’s pull toward the existential. But never before have Cohen’s biblical references felt so charged, so dark, so pointed. “Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name,” he sings. “Vilified, crucified, in the human frame. A million candles burning for the help that never came. You want it darker.” Then, echoing the words that Abraham spoke as he answered God’s command to sacrifice his only son: “Hineni, I’m ready, my Lord.”
You can’t listen to these words without thinking about the fact that Cohen was dying when he recorded them. It’s one thing to meditate on faith and mortality when death is an abstraction. It is surely another when you can feel it bearing down on you. And yet the choir’s harmonies manage to transform the song, lifting Cohen’s solitary struggle into something universal, even eternal.
Cohen once said that he did not think of himself as a religious person, but his life was in many ways an extended spiritual journey. Buddhism, Scientology, kabbalah, Hare Krishna, Hinduism — Cohen sampled them all. Yet in his final years, he found himself drawn back to the 171-year-old synagogue where he had become a bar mitzvah, where both his grandfather and great-grandfather served as presidents, where a photograph of his Hebrew-school class taken in 1949 still hangs on the wall. Cohen was living in Los Angeles, but a cousin in Montreal sent him a recording of Zelermyer and his choir, reuniting Cohen with sounds that had never stopped echoing in his head. He and the cantor struck up an email correspondence. “May your voice reach that Place and bring down the blessings,” Cohen wrote Zelermyer in 2008, before the High Holy Days. (“He can’t write anything normally, can he?” the cantor remembers thinking.) And then several years later came the note, asking for help with a new record. As Cohen put it, “I’m looking for a sound like the Shaar choir and cantor of my youth.”
In October, the record-release event for “You Want It Darker” was held at the residence of the Canadian consul general in Los Angeles. Zelermyer was seated with the other V.I.P.s in the front row. It was the first time he had met Cohen in person. It would also be the last. Weeks later, Cohen’s coffin was lowered into the earth at Shaar Hashomayim’s cemetery. Zelermyer stood next to Cohen’s family as they recited the Kaddish.♦
Jonathan Mahler is a staff writer for the magazine.
If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame You want it darker We kill the flame
Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name Vilified, crucified, in the human frame A million candles burning for the help that never came You want it darker
Hineni, hineni I'm ready, my lord
There's a lover in the story But the story's still the same There's a lullaby for suffering And a paradox to blame But it's written in the scriptures And it's not some idle claim You want it darker We kill the flame
They're lining up the prisoners And the guards are taking aim I struggled with some demons They were middle class and tame I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim You want it darker
Hineni, hineni I'm ready, my lord
Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name Vilified, crucified, in the human frame A million candles burning for the love that never came You want it darker We kill the flame
If you are the dealer, let me out of the game If you are the healer, I'm broken and lame If thine is the glory, mine must be the shame You want it darker
Limited prints of this original artwork by Vladimir Zimakov, with *all proceeds* benefitting PEN america (an organization that defends and protects the rights writers and journalists, sorely needed in the upcoming era of Trump) available here:shop.amandapalmer.net/products/limited-edition-cohen-print
neil gaiman - vocals recorded by patrick o'leary at john marshall media studio in new york city. amanda palmer - piano recorded by prasanna bishop at akashic studio in boulder, colorado
etienne abelin - violin ola sendecki - violin david schnee - viola lukas raaflaub - cello
recorded by benjamin gut at idee und klang studio in basel, switzerland arranged, mixed and mastered by jherek bischoff
You want to go out Friday And you want to go forever You know that it sounds childish That you dreamt of alligators You hope that we are with you And you hope you're recognized You want to go forever You see it in my eyes I'm lost in the confusion And it doesn't seem to matter You really can't believe it And you hope it's getting better
You want to trust the doctors Their procedure is the best But the last try was a failure And the intern was a mess And they did the same to Matthew And he bled 'til Sunday night They're saying don't be frightened But you're weakened by the sight of it You lock into a pattern And you know that it's the last ditch You're trying to see through it And it doesn't make sense But they're saying don't be frightened And they're killing alligators And they're hog-tied And accepting of the struggle
You want to trust religion And you know it's allegory But the people who are followers Have written their own story So you look up to the heavens And you hope that it's a spaceship And it's something from your childhood You're thinking don't be frightened
You want to climb the ladder You want to see forever You want to go out Friday And you want to go forever And you want to cross your DNA To cross your DNA with something reptile
And you're questioning the sciences And questioning religion You're looking like an idiot And you no longer care And you want to bridge the schism, A built-in mechanism to protect you And you're looking for salvation And you're looking for deliverance You're looking like an idiot And you no longer care 'Cause you want to climb the ladder You want to go forever And you want to go out Friday You want to go forever
John Cale - Hallelujah (Official Video) taken from the 'Fragments of a Rainy Season' album, reissue available 09 Dec 2016.
Director - Abigail Portner Director of photography - Garret Curtis Producer - Abigail Portner, Nita Scott wardrobe stylist - Erica Cloud Prop Stylist - Laura Ibanez Bailey Hair and Makeup - Marisa Perrault Girl in red Dress - Arlene Deradoorian