If this two guys are still convinced, there must be some truth about it:
It still is a wonderful world.
Until I just discovered this video on youtube I was not aware that Shane McGowan and Nick Cave ever performed together. Here they celebrate the old Louis Armstrong Classic in a unique way.
I do not know why I was in London. I only remember that the venue was quite out of town and that I was on my own that night many years ago to see Shane McGowan and his new Band “The Popes”. The very second they started to perform the entire crowd wildly jumped up and down dancing Pogo. I was really afraid to get severely hurt. So in probably a funny and strange way I jumped myself to the sidelines of this concert hall.
I will never forget this evening. McGowan was completely drunk but in a unique way of dignity performing his songs. Traditional Irish ones mainly.
I lived quite close to alcoholics in former years. I can not stand to be to close to them today. But I love if they try to stay public and do not hide. Even if they have lost the fight against the bottle. You can see this very dignity in the video. Same dignity to be watched in the Interview with Edith Piaf in this blog on April 20th 2007.
Ein Louis Armstrong Hit, in unbekannter Interpretation. Hatte keine Ahnung, dass Shane McGowan und Nick Cave je gemeinsam aufgetreten sind. Mc Gowan habe ich vor vielen Jahren life in London erlebt. Ein praktizierender Alkoholiker voller Würde. Ich glaube den Text kennt oder versteht jeder. Deshalb hier: keine lyrics.
Here are my two favorite lovesongs in one entry. Marianne Faithful is first with “Crazy Love“. I could not find a suitable video on youtube so here is the audio: Marianne Faithfull: “Crazy Love“
Crazy Love
Hated by all and everywhere he goes
Blazing contempt for human life and lies
Murder as art and what he knows he knows
from life and fear in other people’s eyes
Crazy love is all around me
Love is crazy love is kind
But I know somehow you’ll find me
Love is crazy love is blind
She walks the boulevard without a care
Knowing too much but having come so far
Pretending life is just a game you play for nothing
Loving no-one and no-where
Crazy love is all around me
Love goes crazy given time
But I know somehow you’ll find me
Love is crazy love is blind
She looks as if expecting a surprise
Maybe an encounter that will change her life
Not knowing hot from cold or good for bad
If life is just a joke or if it makes her sad
Crazy love is all around me
Love is crazy love is kind
But I know somehow you’ll find me
Love is crazy love is blind
Crazy love is all around me
Love goes crazy given time
But I know somehow you’ll find me
Love is crazy love is blind
Many Love songs are about sadness when a love has ended. “Crazy Love” deals with the promising opening of love or even the anticipation of a coming love still in search for the lovers. Similar timing in “Dance me to the end of love” by Leonard Cohen about the hope at the beginning of each love to reach and cross every limit. The “end of love” in this song can have so many different shades and meanings. Beside the traditional “till death us part“, it means “to the limits where our love ends” as well as “through these limitations at the current boundary of our love“.
There are many recordings of this song. I like this matured life version most:
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic ’til I’m gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We’re both of us beneath our love, we’re both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Nachdem Cohen und Faithfull gebührend eingeführt sind, hier meine beiden liebsten Songs zum Thema Liebe. Beide behandeln den Auftakt, die Option, die Verheissung des Zusammenkommens. Wobei das “to the end of love” bei Cohen unzählige Bedeutungen annehmen kann: von klassischen “bis dass der Tod Euch scheidet” über “bis wir das Potential unserer Liebe erschöpft ist und sie endet” bis zu “über die Begrenztheit dessen was wir uns vorstellen können hinaus“.
“Show me slowly what I only know the limits of!“
I already mentioned that beside Leonard Cohen from the male perspective it is Marianne Faithfull whom I trust most to phrase human encounters of love (and hate of course). Let me introduce Marianne with a song that at least at first view has nothing to do with this topic: “Times Square“. In her introduction she relates it to her experience as a drug addict. Something I am luckily unable to share. For me the lyrics of “Times Square” will never be completely understood but they induce an intense mood and feeling every time I hear them. That is what only excellent poetry can express and reach.
In a tired part of the city
Waiting for some fast talk
Watch ‘Don’t walk’ to ‘Walk’
Easy when you’re dreaming
Standing in a circle,
Staring at the movies
laughing at the wrong time.
Alcohol could take me there.
I’d take a shot a minute
And be there by the hour.
Take a walk around Times Square
With a pistol in my suitcase
And my eyes on the TV.
In a car taking a back seat
Staring out the window
Thinking about danger.
Playing in a wrong court
Fighting — but I’m not free.
Talking on the telephone
Talking about you and me.
Jesus Christ could take me there
I’d fall down on my knees,
Have no questions to His answers.
Take a walk around Times Square
With a pistol in my suitcase
And my eyes on the TV.
And if I die gaining my senses
Wake up in a hotel
Staring at the ceiling.
Hier also Marianne Faithfull, neben Leonard Cohen meine beste ExpertIn für Liebe (und natürlich: Hass). Das leistet nur gute Lyrik: etwas ausdrücken, das man nie ganz erfasst oder klar versteht und doch als Wahrheit erspürt zwischen den Zeilen.
Und hier kommt das Original, von dem Meister B.B. in “Ideal eines Mannes in früheren Zeiten” so schamlos klaut, und das er mit der Überschrift “in früheren Zeiten” gleichzeitig ironisch bricht: “If” von Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1938). Muss man erwähnen, das Kipling selbstverständlich ein Mann seiner Zeit war und man die Zeilen “you´ll be a man my son” heute wohl doch mit “wirst Du ein Mensch sein, Kind” gender mainstreamend korrekt adaptieren sollte?
If…
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings — nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son!
So after Brechts adaption in the last entry here is the original: “If” by Rudyard Kipling.
Recently i communicate a lot about love and partnership. My favorite poets on that issue are Leonard Cohen from the male and Marianne Faithfull from the female perspective. I started this “Triumph and Disaster” blog in April 2007 with Cohens poem/song “If it be your will…“. Here is another Cohen favorite of mine “Famous blue raincoat…“. A letter written by L.C. to an unnamed rival, that is the setting of this great love song.
I had quoted Max Frischs Stiller before in this blog: “…die Tapferkeit, ohne Vorwurf denken zu können, dass der Partner vielleicht glücklicher wird ohne uns…” (”… the bravery, to imagine without reproach our partner might be more contented without us…”).
It is exactly this -even in hindsight- difficult thought that Cohen expresses in the lines “…I´m glad, that you stood in my way” (…) thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes. I thought it was there for good so I never tried…”. Here is the song:
Leonard Cohen aus männlicher und Marianne Faithfull aus weiblicher Perspektive sind meine Dichterexperten zum Thema Liebe und Partnerschaft. Mit “If it be your will…“von Cohen hatte ich “Triumph and Disaster” im April 2007 begonnen. Cohens Gedicht/Song “Famous blue raincoat…“, knüpft an einen Gedanken an, der hier schon einmal im Zitat aus Max Frischs Stiller angeklungen ist: “…die Tapferkeit, ohne Vorwurf denken zu können, dass der Partner vielleicht glücklicher wird ohne uns…“. Hier bei Cohen lauten die entsprechenden Zeilen: “…I´m glad, that you stood in my way” und “thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes I thought it was there for good so I never tried…”. L.C. hat fürwahr ein ungewöhnliches Sujet für diese Liebeslied gewählt: Brief an den Rivalen, zwei Männer unter sich:
Leonard Cohen: Famous blue raincoat…
It’s four in the morning, the end of December
I’m writing you now just to see if you’re better
New York is cold, but I like where I’m living
There’s music on Clinton Street all through the evening.
I hear that you’re building your little house deep in the desert
You’re living for nothing now, I hope you’re keeping some kind of record.
Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear
Did you ever go clear?
Ah, the last time we saw you you looked so much older
Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder
You’d been to the station to meet every train
And you came home without Lili Marlene
And you treated my woman to a flake of your life
And when she came back she was nobody’s wife.
Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth
One more thin gypsy thief
Well I see Jane’s awake –
She sends her regards.
And what can I tell you my brother, my killer
What can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you
I’m glad you stood in my way.
If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me
Your enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free.
Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes
I thought it was there for good so I never tried.
And Jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear –
