#leonard cohen
I’ve done so many lettering and calligraphy pieces over the years, like you guys wouldn’t believe. I’ve sat down and sifted through them and picked some 100+ artworks for a brand-new compilation zine.
For your enjoyment and inspiration, you get 100 pages of black-and-white lettering. It’s FREE up on my Gumroad — although, as per usual, I would really appreciate tips!
Anyway, I hope you enjoy, and please spread the word!
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Ectopic Ents is proud to announce the long-awaited vinyl reissue of the second Foetusalbum,ACHE, to coincide with it’s 40th anniversary. Released under the moniker You’ve Got Foetus On Your Breath, the ACHE album was originally released in 1982 on JG Thirlwell’s Self Immolation label, whilst he was resident in London. It was recorded at Lavender Sound studio in South London and engineered by Harlan Cockburn.
On its release it was acclaimed by the music press, John Peel and even cited by Leonard Cohen on more than one occasion. Over the years the album has become a highly sought-after collectors item.
The 2022 reissue was meticulously remastered by Josh Bonati and is pressed on white vinyl in a limited run of 1000. The album is packaged with a reproduction of the original promo poster from the album and a download code for the album in either high quality 320kbps mp3 or wav files. In addition, each order includes a 5″ x 5″ sticker of the album cover art personally signed by JG Thirlwell.
You can order the album at www.foetus.organdhttps://jgthirlwell.bandcamp.com/(and yes, it’s Bandcamp Friday!)
“Ache is possessed by a bristling, maniacal intelligence which spews out a jostling, surreal collage of subverted musical and verbal cliches, wired word associations, epigrams and sheer invective with frantic urgency and gleeful black humor. Ache is one of the most violently compelling records I’ve heard in ages.” Mat Snow,NME12.11.1982
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We have just published a brand new lyric video for the classic Foetus track ’Instead…I Became Anenome’ to coincide with the 40th anniversary white vinyl re-issue of the second Foetus album ACHE, originally released in 1982. The song is the final song on the acclaimed album and the lyrics were quoted by Leonard Cohen on more than one occasion.
Foetus ACHE white vinyl reissue will be released on May 6 2022, on the Foetus website and JG Thirlwell’s Bandcamp page.
The video was created in 2022 by JG Thirlwell. You can watch it here at the JG Thirlwell YouTube channel. While you are there please subscribe to the JG Thirlwell YouTube channel.
LEONARD COHEN - ‘FIRST WE TAKE MANHATTAN’
CBS, 1988
No formato a 45 rotações este foi o primeiro disco de Leonard Cohen que comprei. Um máxi-single, que recordava 'The Sisters of Mercy’ no lado B (ainda hoje a canção dele de que mais gosto). Foi uma verdadeira surpresa, em 1988, encontrar semelhante viço pop e um tão atual trabalho com sintetizadores numa canção de Cohen. Que, convenhamos, vinca bem os jogos de contrastes com a sua voz. Nascia ali um clássico.
A big 1988 surprise, a Leonard Cohen song so powrfully driven bu synths. But pay atention to how the vocals mark the contrasts…
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Hallelujah - Rufus Wainwright with a choir of 1,500
Bird on the Wire - Leonard Cohen live in London, 9/15/13
by Leonard Cohen
A person who eats meat
wants to get his teeth into something
A person who does not eat meat
wants to get his teeth into something else
If these thoughts interest you for even a moment
you are lost.
Leonard Cohen, who died this week, was one of America’s greatest songwriters—Bob Dylan told Cohen that he considered him his nearest rival—and is a figure of almost cult-like devotion among fans. He gave his final interview to David Remnick over the summer. Listen to it now.
I’m in tears
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when christian artists change the line in hallelujah from “maybe there’s a God above” to “I know that there’s a God above” >:c
#idk why i’m so unreasonably angry#maybe cuz it’s my fav line
it’s also because Leonard COHEN (!) was Jewish and this is a quintessentially Jewish line, and changing it to that level of Annoying Certainty is stripping it of its Jewish meaning and imbuing it with that particularly American smug evangelical Christian attitude that makes me tired, so very tired
THAT IS EXACTLY WHY
I don’t think I’ve heard any cover artist sing my favorite verses
You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujahum woah
I will always hit the reblog button so hard for Hallelujah but ESPECIALLY mentions of the elusive final verses which are just about my favorite lyrics ever. Why do people always omit the best part of the song??
In Yiddish
In Hebrew
In Ladino
Yeah, I wonder why the verses that reference specific Jewish mystical and chassidic concepts that aren’t readily understood by American “I love Jews, you know, Jesus was Jewish!” Christians never get any airtime. Funny that.
You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken HallelujahThese are specifically about Chassidic Jewish theories of the holy language, how each letter and combination of letters in Hebrew contains the essence of the divine spark and if used correctly, can unlock or uncover the divine spark in the mundane material word. And of course, there are secret names of God which, when spoken by any ordinary human would kill them, but if you are worthy and holy and righteous can be used to perform miracles or even to behold the glory of God face-to-face. The words themselves have power. Orthodox Jews often won’t even pronounce the word “hallelujah” in it’s entirety in conversation, because the “yah” sound at the end is a True Name of God (there are hundreds, supposedly) and thus too holy to say outside of prayer.
None of this is to mention how David’s sin in sleeping with Batshevah (the subject of much of the song, with a brief deviation to Shimshon and Delilah) is considered the turning point in the Tanach that ultimately dooms the Davidic line at the cosmological level and thus dooms Jewish sovereignty and independence altogether. From a Christian perspective this led to Jesus, the King of Kings, and that’s all very well and good for them, but for the Jews, the Davidic line never returned and is the central tragedy of the total arc of the Torah. Like, our Bible doesn’t have a happy ending? And that’s what this song is about? There’s no Grace - you just have to sit with the sin and its consequence.
Of course, Cohen is referencing all of this ironically, and personalizing these very high-level religious concepts. Like the point of this song is that Cohen, the songwriter, is identifying with David, the psalmist, and identifying his own sins with David’s. The ache that you hear in this song is that the two thousand year exile that resulted from one wrong night of passion and Cohen feels that the pain he has caused to his lover is of equally monumental infamy. Basically, in a certain light, the whole of Psalms is a vain effort for David to atone for his sin and I think Cohen was writing this song in wonderment that David could eternally praise the God who would not forgive him and would force him and his people into exile. But he ultimately gets how you have to surrender to the inexorable force of God in the face of your own inadequacies and how to surrender is to worship and to worship is to praise - hence, Hallelujah. You can either do the right thing and worship God from the start, or you can fuck up, be punished, and thus be forced to beg for His forgiveness. It’s the terrible inevitability of praise that’s driving him mad.
Like honestly, I identify with this song so strongly as an off-the-derech Jew, I sometimes wonder what Christians can possibly hear in this song, as it speaks so specifically to the sadomasochistic relationship that a lapsed Jew has with their God. It’s such a different song from a Christian theological perspective it’s almost unrecognizable, man. This song continues to be a wonder of postmodern Jewish theology and sexuality from start to finish. Don’t let anyone give you any “Judeo-Christian” narishkeit. This is a Jewish song.
(Sorry about the wild tangent it’s just 2AM and I love this song so dang much, you guys.)
holy shit. woah.
This.
That last bit from @stoneandbloodandwater, that’s a great articulation of the well of feeling, memory, storytelling, and culture packed into one of the most Jewish songs ever to get real famous. The song is both surrender and defiance, and that those are actually a single path together, not two opposite choices.
“I Attended a Swanky Wedding for Instagram-Famous Dogs and It Got Weird”
I didn’t go to any weddings in 2015 and I probably won’t go to any weddings in 2017. I went to one wedding in 2016 and it was surreal as heck.
“How Confused Are the Celebrities Who Endorse Donald Trump?”
For this piece I spent hours on the phone getting berated by Scott Baio and discussing the climate (“I feel like it’s actually gotten better!”) with Tila Tequila. Here is where I stumbled into a beat that defined a lot of my writing this year— the intersection of Trump’s campaign with the celebrity and entertainment world at large.
“Leonard Cohen Albums From Worst to Best”
Spent all my free time in October writing essays about every Leonard Cohen album. I started working on this before You Want It Darker came out and when I did hear that record I was even more astonished by the quality and breadth of this discography. Hope I did it justice, idk.
“Are We Living in a Golden Age of Stunt Journalism?”
No. No, we are not. Proud of this “deep” “dive” though.
“Is Donald Trump Really Just Andy Kaufman in Disguise? An Investigation”
I spent much of August calling up Andy Kaufman’s friends and family and asking about Trump and Andy conspiracy theories and they had so much to say and I learned so much about Andy. This is the strangest thing I wrote on the intersection-of-Trump-campaign-and-pop-culture beat and also the best.
“Rest in Purple, Prince: 1958–2016″
Spent April 19 driving around Portland with Matt blasting Musicology(which I’d bought a couple days before) on a gorgeous day. Spent April 21 hunched over my cubicle processing the unthinkable and writing the obituary I thought I wouldn’t have to write for another 20 years.
“An Argument About the Democratic Primary Composed Entirely From Salon.com Headlines”
lol I don’t know either.
“Dammit, Other Music Is Closing: A Eulogy for New York’s Most Beloved Record Store”
Feels weird to write an obituary for a business when we lost too many flesh-and-blood humans in 2016. But I spent so many fucking hours in Other Music between 2008 and 2015. I miss it. I am glad I wrote this for Noisey.
“The Ridiculous Stories Behind Donald Trump’s Movie and TV Cameos”
Kind of wish I’d given this one a sharper title, like “An Exhaustive History of Trump Being a Jerk on the Set of Forgotten ‘90s Sitcoms.”
2016 was sort of the year that I gave up trying to write celebrity profiles but I guess you could loosely call this a celebrity profile in which case it is the best celebrity profile I’ve written.
“Hamilton, The Biggest Thing on Broadway, Is Being Taught in Classrooms All Over”
ok reading back on this I wish it didn’t read so much like a press release, but I am still so proud that I wrote this painfully inevitable trend piece before the Timesdid.
“PJ Harvey Albums From Worst to Best”
At 26, my grandfather had fled Germany and served in World War II. At 26, I’ve ranked Is This Desire at #2 on a list of PJ Harvey’s albums. Bravery comes in different forms.
A piece about Slowdive’s Souvlaki, from the “failed 33 1/3 proposals” issue of Maura Magazine.
“Real Dispatches From the Alternate Universe Where Hillary Clinton Won”
Other people’s writing, my curation. It seemed to touch a nerve.
My Drunk Ted Talk About Nicolas Cage
I’ll put it online eventually I swear
Goddamn, man child … it’s kind of a sad thing seeing the smartest dude I’ve met have his shit the least together. I’m sitting across from him in Tangent Cafe exactly like last winter. Starts broaching the topic of my writing.
“I’m in it,” he says, without missing the fact that I’ve never said a thing, never mentioned a place name, beyond the fact that I did writing this year.
But it’s actually not true, bc if this person was actually in it, the story would be a lot more savage lol … and even though life has moved on, I have no problems going back to my writing.
Anyway here’s Leonard Cohen, father of old Montreal, reading Beautiful Losers.
Democracy
- Music and Lyrics by Leonard Cohen
- From the Album The Future (1992)
Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.It’s coming through a hole in the air,
from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It’s coming from the feel
that this ain’t exactly real,
or it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there.From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.It’s coming through a crack in the wall;
on a visionary flood of alcohol;
from the staggering account
of the Sermon on the Mount
which I don’t pretend to understand at all.It’s coming from the silence
on the dock of the bay,
from the brave, the bold, the battered
heart of Chevrolet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It’s coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin’
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.From the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of God in the desert here
and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.Sail on, sail on
It’s coming to America first,
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It’s here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it’s here they got the spiritual thirst.It’s here the family’s broken
and it’s here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It’s coming from the women and the men.
O baby, we’ll be making love again.
We’ll be going down so deep
the river’s going to weep,
and the mountain’s going to shout Amen!It’s coming like the tidal flood
beneath the lunar sway,
imperial, mysterious,
in amorous array:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.Sail on, sail on
I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene.
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.To the U.S.A.
To the U.S.A.
To the U.S.A.
I have been waiting four years to post this.
Canción del extranjero
Concierto en homenaje a Leonard Cohen
Paraninfo de la Universidad de Oviedo
20 de octubre de 2011
Nota El 19 de octubre también tocó la versión adaptada al castellano de The Stranger Song (1967), en el teatro Jovellanos de Gijón y con Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) presente, a dos días de recibir el premio Príncipe de Asturias de las letras (de 2011). Esta canción también la grabó en 2004 y salió publicada el 14 de marzo de 2005 como «cara B» del sencillo El hombre que casi conoció a Michi Panero(Limbo Starr, 2005).
