Complicated Cohen

   I was excited when they gave a Lifetime Achievement Award to Leonard Cohen at the Grammys last week.  I have loved this Quebecois since Judy Collins sang his "Suzanne" way back when, although I didn't know too much about him.
   About fifteen years later in an old gym in southwest Minnesota I was watching a performance of a group of Norwegian gymnasts.  They were not doing gymnastics as we know it but some sort of group exercise invented by the Chinese (probably) and it was done to music.  One of the songs was beautiful.  I had no clue what it was but the tune became etched into my brain.  And in those pre-Internet times it was not as easy as it is today to track things down.  In fact, it was almost impossible.
   But several years later, I was watching  figure skating on TV. Canadians were skating. In fact, I think it was ice dancing and they were skating to none other than The Song!  The commentators mentioned its name.  It was "Take This Waltz" and it was by Leonard Cohen, the famous Canadian recluse who spent years in a Zen Buddhist monastery near LA.
   Cohen and Bob Dylan are probably the greatest songwriters ever.  They are poets to be sure.  But sometimes, I think Cohen is, well, misunderstood.
   For instance, his "Hallelujah" has been used on hundreds of TV shows.  They usually  play it in some sad situation or when the character has just seen the light. I think it often comes in times of "redemption."  But have you ever read the words?  OK "Your faith was strong but you needed proof, You saw her bathing on the roof, Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you. She tied you to a kitchen chair, she broke your throne and she cut your hair..." Huh? And it gets "better."  
   I think the situation is this. The music is so damn pretty and moving that nobody cares what the words are.  I mean the words are fine poetry and and a lot of metaphor, religious references, etc. But in many instances but they just don't always fit the scene, if you know what I mean.
  For example, "Take This Waltz."  The ice skaters were dancing to these words.  "Oh I want you I want you I want you, On a chair with a dead magazine."  It continues with "This waltz this waltz this waltz, with its very own breath of brandy and death, dragging its tail in the sea."
   It's OK with me 'cause I love art but some of these lyrics could make children run screaming.  Advice to teachers out there.  Don't put Cohen music behind the kindergarten video. You might be in for a law suit.
   The man is great but he takes me out of my comfort zone time and time again.  Let's face it. There's only so much I want to know about what went on with him (and Janis Joplin, they say) in the Chelsea Hotel. But you have to love a guy whose first band was called The Buckskin Boys.