Blogtrotter

Polka-dot Dancing Men: Leonard Cohen

Lee Templeton over at http://www.ComeBackHorslips.com corrected me on a lyrical fragment that I had read in a review of that suddenly ubiquitous Amy Winehouse's album, and posted on CBH's GB the whole song, which I never heard of. I did tell Lee that once in college I liked a girl named Suzanne, and wrote her a card with the lyrics to the song of the same name by Cohen. The lyrics and/or me "freaked her out," she told me. I gave the missus once a bio of LC about a decade ago. It's enormous. Gathering dust on the top shelf, waiting for us to read it as we surely will one day perhaps in retirement. Obviously, I don't know much about Cohen, other than that he lives part-time up with the Zen masters on Mt. Baldy, above my very own childhood haunts of which I began this March month on this blog writing about in "Phil Spector & Me," in turn inspired by some musings I had after Lee had posted an old postcard written by her aunts in 1964 sent from Ireland back to their Ontario (CA) family.

(Update: LLT tells me it's not the original LC but a cover version on an album I only played once but that she assures me is damn straight, if the last place I'd've thought to look: Fairport Convention's album of about a dozen years back, "The Jewel in the Crown." Image: a diligent search of the first 600 images on Google for AH revealed none with her in said red dress with white polka-dots. So, a substitute. Apparently she has a rabid following among lesbians too.)

Your polka-dot dancing men are from Leonard Cohen's great song of pub-life "Closing Time" which has line after quotable line of bitter beauty:

Ah we're drinking and we're dancing
and the band is really happening
and the Johnny Walker wisdom running high
And my very sweet companion
she's the Angel of Compassion
she's rubbing half the world against her thigh
And every drinker every dancer
lifts a happy face to thank her
the fiddler fiddles something so sublime
all the women tear their blouses off
and the men they dance on the polka-dots
and it's partner found, it's partner lost and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops:
it's closing time.

Yeah the women tear their blouses off
and the men they dance on the polka-dots
and it's partner found, it's partner lost and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops:
it's closing time.

Ah we're lonely, we're romantic
and the cider's laced with acid
and the Holy Spirit's crying, "Where's the beef?"
And the moon is swimming naked
and the summer night is fragrant
with a mighty expectation of relief
So we struggle and we stagger
down the snakes and up the ladder
to the tower where the blessed hours chime
and I swear it happened just like this:
a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss
the Gates of Love they budged an inch
I can't say much has happened since
but closing time.

I swear it happened just like this:
a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss
the Gates of Love they budged an inch
I can't say much has happened since
but closing time.

I loved you for your beauty
but that doesn't make a fool of me:
you were in it for your beauty too
and I loved you for your body
there's a voice that sounds like God to me
declaring, declaring, declaring
that your body's really you
And I loved you when our love was blessed
and I love you now there's nothing left
but sorrow and a sense of overtime
and I missed you since the place got wrecked
And I just don't care what happens next
looks like freedom but it feels like death
it's something in between, I guess
it's closing time.

Yeah I missed you since the place got wrecked
By the winds of change and the weeds of sex
looks like freedom but it feels like death
it's something in between, I guess
it's closing time.

Yeah we're drinking and we're dancing
but there's nothing really happening
and the place is dead as Heaven
on a Saturday night
And my very close companion
gets me fumbling gets me laughing
she's a hundred but she's wearing
something tight
and I lift my glass to the Awful Truth
which you can't reveal to the Ears of Youth
except to say it isn't worth a dime
And the whole damn place goes crazy twice
and it's once for the devil and once for Christ
but the Boss don't like these dizzy heights
we're busted in the blinding lights,
busted in the blinding lights
of closing time.

The whole damn place goes crazy twice
and it's once for the devil and once for Christ
but the Boss don't like these dizzy heights
we're busted in the blinding lights,
busted in the blinding lights
of closing time.