leonard cohen, bob dylan and tom waits are favourites of most male musicians i know. given the lack of vocal abilities in all three i've never really paid them much mind. as a singer i am much more drawn to melody than i am a lyric. never really had a good ear for them either, i'm the type that needs to see the words before i can hear them.
the fact that i don't have all of the key albums from each of these icons makes me an infedel among the aforementioned musically inclined men in my life. every one of them has tried to school me in the merits of this holy trinity of wisdom. i was reluctant at first because i hate to be told to like something simply because people who collect albums like baseball cards say so.
so this film is part of my open minded attempt to see what all the fuss is about. my first exposure to the world of leonard was when i discovered the song suzanne in a compilation of tunes i had in a second hand guitar book. i was mezmerized by the melody-so much more appealing when i plucked it out rather than hearing leonard do it. the lyric, at once ambiguous and beautifully specific (tea and oranges) soon generated a strong feeling that was very similar to the connection i feel to a lot of tori amos' bizarre lyrical jaunts.
my second glimpse of lenny was the tune i'm your man, as sung by an incredible woman named madelaine peyroux. i did a cover of it with my band at the time and loved the feeling of it. the plaintive feel of it then the swelling, desperate b section. it's got a cool ragtime-y feel to it that i also love where you can lean on the phrase a little bit.
anyhoo, back to the film. so i'm at a part where leonard is describing how all of his songs are about trying to translate the beauty that he finds all around him. how he's always doubted his abilities as a writer because the word just isn't enough. s also speaks about the way that sometimes after he's written something he's not sure what its about. sometimes it's just about connecting to a moment.
it's exactly how i feel. all art is trying to translate something natural that has moved you. he's incredibly humble, sharp, charming, self-aware, choosing his words thoughtfully and pointedly. his drawings, interspersed between his narration are similarly sparse, centred on the iconic female form.
he's reading from a preface to a chinese translation of his book beautiful losers. in it, he warns the reader to skip the parts they don't like, to approach it with humour and to realize that what they are reading is more about sunstroke acquired from the hours he spent outside on an island writing it than anything else. i've read the book and found myself smirking as he spoke, like him, i appreciated it in paragraphs and turns of phrase rather than as a complete entity. such a treat to have the author speak in their own voice as a disclaimer of sorts to the experimental voice they borrowed while trapsing around in the lives of the characters who follow.
visions of him as a monk now. cloistered himself up after he lost his way when he separated from the mother of his children. feel a similar inclination to actively surround myself in silence when faced with emotional noise.
now that the words are appearing in drawings on the screen and are being contextualized i'm drawn in. i am most impressed by the intention of the words and his attempt to capture it all plainly.
credits are running now and he's singing. deeply resisting urge to ffwd, got a william shatner stiltedness that is making me nauseous. in sum, have discovered i will never be a fan of his vocals but am more inclined to read the liner notes.
glad i rented it. if for nothiing else than to pay homage to someone who tried to express himself in the most honest way he knew how.
