Album: No Exit
Song: Parachute
Incidentally, this is another tune that de-emphasizes the lyrical component of songwriting. I'm not trying to make a consistent argument in this blog, but the longer I write about these songs the less important text seems to become. Heh.
Leonard Cohen. Sigh. I'm supposed to love him. He's an icon, internationally loved. And Canadian. "Suzanne" and "Hallelujah" regularly appear on "Best Song" lists. But... Jeez. I mean... Boring. Boring. Just... Boring. Beautiful poetry. I guess. Like, it's okay. But the music. God almighty. Sigh. Feel like half-traitor for suggesting he's anything less than brilliant.
Hell, give me Shugo every damn day of the week.
Dude, I love Leonard Cohen.
ReplyDeleteLeonard Cohen is fine. From a musical standpoint pretty damn boring, but otherwise just fine. And yet I've come to prefer the country-folk musings of John Prine, who by any musical standard is no less boring than Cohen. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteArtistic taste can be confounding. Perhaps once we reach a certain level of sophistication relatively arbitrary factors figure in to individual likes and dislikes. For example, I grew up in a cultural environment deifying Leonard Cohen. I forced myself to listen to all of his albums, to watch all of the documentaries and television specials devoted to him, to see him perform live not once but twice...and still heard only adequate poetry and boring music. I'm sure my negative reaction was stronger for his cultural stature, however. Kind of like sitting down to watch a universally acclaimed movie and subsequently being underwhelmed. Contrast this to my exposure to Prine. I knew of him, but he wasn't iconic -- at least not in my cultural environment. Consequently I found his unpretentious tales much more engaging than the high-minded poetic musings of Cohen. If we engage with art with high expectations we're more likely to be disappointed, I guess.
Just like The Godfather and me.
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