Just to prove I'm not a complete chrome-hearted cynic

[eye_of_a_cat]

Some of my favourite non-bitter, non-twisted, non-angry lyrics from love songs:

I'm not looking for another as I wander in my time
Walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme (Leonard Cohen, 'Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye')

There are a thousand things about me I want only you to know (The Indigo Girls, 'You've Got To Show

I know you might roll your eyes at this, but I'm so glad that you exist (The Weakerthans, 'The Reasons')

Well, you may not be beautiful
But it's not for me to judge
I don't know if you're beautiful
Because I love you too much (The Magnetic Fields, 'Asleep and Dreaming')

What can I compare you to, a window the sun shines through?
Maybe the silver moon, a smile rising
The magic of the fading day, satellites on parade
A toast to the plans we've made to live like kings (The Weepies, 'Take It From Me')

Comments

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

I must be bitter and twisted:

My favourite Cohen love song is Chelsea Hotel:

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
you were talking so brave and so sweet,
giving me head on the unmade bed,
while the limousines wait in the street.
Those were the reasons and that was New York,
we were running for the money and the flesh.
And that was called love for the workers in song
probably still is for those of them left.

Ah but you got away, didn't you babe,
you just turned your back on the crowd,
you got away, I never once heard you say,
I need you, I don't need you,
I need you, I don't need you
and all of that jiving around.

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend.
You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind,
we are ugly but we have the music."

And then you got away, didn't you babe...

I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best,
I can't keep track of each fallen robin.
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
that's all, I don't even think of you that often.

And then there's Joan of Arc.

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, I love that one. What do you make of the last line? I'm fairly sure that the detail in the rest of the song suggests it's not entirely truthful, but one of my friends is convinced it's just straightforwardly matter-of-fact.

My favourite Cohen-on-love is Famous Blue Raincoat, though. I must have heard it a hundred times and I still can't work out who slept with who and who left who for who, but I'm crazy in love with any song that wraps up ideas of love and possession and ownership so well. When I am queen of the universe and can decree that somebody remake Breakfast At Tiffany's in a way more faithful to the story, that's going on the soundtrack.

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

The song is about Janis Joplin, and was written after her death, so I suspect it's matter-of-fact, but with a twist. And, having listened to a lot of LC, could he finish off a song like that without intending to leave a twist?

LC occasionaly introduces the song with the following tale:

He and Joplin had been staying in the Chelsea (in New York) and had been passing each other in the halls and running into each other in the elevators. In one of these encounters, Joplin, well into her cups, asked Cohen if he had seen Kris Kristofferson (who wrote Me and Bobby McGee). Cohen said he was Kristofferson.

Debauchery apparently ensued.

I am an unabashed Cohen fan. I just spent way too much time reading through lyrics of his songs.