Leonard Cohen: "Tower of Song"

Leonard Cohen, 2008

(Image from Wikipedia)

I've been listening a lot to Leonard Cohen lately as I rework my previous reworking of my wife's translation of stories by the contemporary Korean writer Jang Jung-il. I could probably draw out some lines of connection between Cohen and Jang if I tried . . . but I won't try because I feel like Hank Williams these days, so I'll just leave you with Cohen's reference to Williams in "Tower of Song," while I get back to work:

Well my friends are gone, and my hair is grey,
I ache in the places where I used to play,
And I'm crazy for love, but I'm not coming on.
I'm just paying my rent every day
In the tower of song.

I said to Hank Williams: How lonely does it get?
Hank Williams hasn't answered yet,
But I hear him coughing all night long,
Oh, a hundred floors above me
In the tower of song.

I was born like this, I had no choice,
I was born with the gift of a golden voice,
And twenty-seven angels from the great beyond,
Well, they tied me to this table right here
In the tower of song.

So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll;
I'm very sorry, baby, doesn't look like me at all;
I'm standing by the window where the light is strong.
Ah, they don't let a woman kill you,
Not in the tower of song.

Well, you can say that I've grown bitter, but of this you may be sure,
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor,
And there's a mighty judgement coming, but I may be wrong.
You see, you hear these funny voices
In the tower of song.

I see you standing on the other side,
Don't know how the river got so wide,
I loved you baby, way back when,
And all bridges are burning that we might have crossed.
Feel so close to everything that we lost,
We'll never, we'll never have to lose it again

So I bid you farewell, I don't know when I'll be back,
They're moving us tomorrow to the tower down the track,
But you'll be hearing from me baby, long after I'm gone.
I'll be speaking to you sweetly,
From my window in the tower of song.

Well my friends are gone, and my hair is grey,
I ache in the places where I used to play,
And I'm crazy for love, but I'm not coming on.
I'm just paying my rent every day
In the tower of song.

In case you missed it, I've linked to Cohen's performance of this song with U2 on You Tube. Go there and listen . . . and click on some other Cohen performances.

As for me . . . I'm getting back to coughing my way through a lonely editing of Jang Jung-il.