Music For Chameleons
I finally had dinner with the Ghecko tonight. The Ghecko is a many flecked creature. He is everything to everybody. The Man Without Qualities. Pleasant. Good looking in an ambient sort of way. Never one to cause offence on the slightest pretext whatsoever. Blandness reigns. Life is ecru. Maybe life is switched onto an easy listening channel forever. Nothing bad can ever happen in Ghecko world. I am bored. Stiff. Why have men like the Ghecko been invented ? I suppose in a zen-meets-chips kind of world GheckoMan can exude a kind of dull happiness over all he surveys. Presumably GheckoWoman lies in wait for him, blending seamlessly into her environment waiting to entrance her Blah equivalent.
It was in this state of insufferable equilbrium that I returned home. Kicked off my shoes. Threw myself onto the bed. I needed a dose of emotion, to undo the eternal equivalence the Ghecko had induced. And I found it. A song I'd played on the show. "Dance Me To The End of Love." By someone called Madeleine Peyroux. It hadn't quite registered at the time as more than a nifty tune. Then I flicked on my Ipod and among the 2361 songs I'd randomly transferred, I found the original Leonard Cohen version. Quite simply, they don't write lyrics like this any longer. Bland prefabricated songs have stopped me from focusing on words. Bland prefabricated men have stopped me from focusing on emotion. L. Cohen. Dance Me To End of Love.
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
posted by Uber Homme at 4:38 am
4 Comments:
i love leonard cohen and 'dance me to the end of love' is one of my favorite poems/songs - the title is so apt for my approach to relationships.
you should also check out jeff buckley ('we all fall in love sometimes') and nick drake ('suicide is painless').
and you're right, they don't write lyrics like this any more. one of the few contemporary songwriters i like is damien rice, who has a brilliant voice and the lyrics are pretty good too - depressing as fuck, really and not recommended if you've just been dumped, cause you might just end up killing yourself.
nice lyrics.
does blah-man also have a stuiff stare which refuses to waver?
i hate lizards, period. No, really - PERIOD.
Sarah: I did play the LC song on the show last night...all 6 minutes and 34 seconds of it. Thank you for the other recommendations. Will get to them ASAP. I remember "Suicide is Painless" from college days ..the prudish BBC channels banned it on some pretext or the other.
LivingHigh: Its not quite a stare...just a permanent glance into the middle distance.
Addict: How bout Suzanne ? ("Tea and oranges that come all the way from China.") I was listening to this shit when I was 12 or 13. And my friends' kids fly all the way to Dubai to get a dose of Destiny's Child.
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