A thousand years ago I lived at this Hotel in NYC. I was a frequent rider of the elevator on this Hotel. I will continuously leave my room and come back. I was an expert on the buttons of that elevator. One of the few technologies I really ever mastered. The door opened. I walked in. Put my finger right on the button. No hesitation. Great sense of mastery in those days. Late in the morning, early in the evening. I noticed a young woman in that elevator. She was riding it with as much delight as I was. Even though she commanded huge audiences, riding that elevator was the only thing she really knew how to do. My lung gathered my courage. I said to her “Are you looking for someone?” She said “Yes, I’m looking for Kris Kristofferson “I said “Little Lady, you’re in luck, I am Kris Kristofferson.” Those were generous times. Even though she knew that I was someone shorter than Kris Kristofferson, she never led on. Great generosity prevailed in those doom decades. Anyhow I wrote this song for Janis Joplin at the Chelsea Hotel.
"I need you; I don't need you" is the push and pull of head and heart. Ultimately you make the decision which will win. I know this, if you let your head win your heart will never be the same. Wounds heal yes, but they leave scars forever tougher.
It's ten years since your comment....curious, hows your feet? Have your soles quieted down a bit? BTW Cohen spoke to my soul just now and to you he whispers "you're welcome".
One of the great things about Cohen is that he can sing his old songs with such intensity after doing them for so many years. Really, this performance just burns....
I'm bawling like a baby... If there was any single artist that shaped me, it was you, from your novels, to your poems, to your music. One of my first college friends, my first "grown up" friend was formed because of a mutual liking for you... .I learned about Lorca and Duende from you.. In my younger, handsomer days, I dressed like you....My dark optimism was learned from you...I learned how to seduce women from you...I learned to appreciate, honor and respect women from you... This can't be true... you couldn't have left us today... you shaped so much of me when I was young...Bless you Leonard... Thank you for your words.... Rest well old teacher......but no... please no. (When I discovered Leonard in the 80's there were very few copies of his two novels, Beautiful Losers and The Favorite Game available. My college "Leonard friend" Tony Ferlito managed to find the first one, Beautiful Losers through interlibrary loan from god knows where. But the loan was like only for two weeks, and we knew that we wouldn't both be able to get through it in such a short time... so we torn... should we just steal it or what? This was Leonard's rare novel. We couldn't let it go... so instead we spent hours (and I really don't want to think about how much it cost at 4 cents a page) xeroxing ourselves each a copy, and painstaking laying out and gluing the sheets together into book form, then binding them together fittingly with cardboard and black tape. I remember having that book for years, re-reading it until it dissolved.... Luckily years later I found reprints... which now I no longer have.)
I'm the only person I know who has read Beautiful Losers, Flowers for Hitler, etc. I'm trying to find Leonard's death as uplifting as I found Songs from a Room but I am as sad as I can be - what a week.
Michael Copado; I first remember hearing Leonard Cohen while I was serving in the Navy, watching a movie for which he did the sound track.... " Mccabe and Mrs Miller", is a timeless movie , well worth tracking down. I would be shocked if you said you haven't seen the movie. The songs so well interlaced with the mesmerizing script and the archaic setting in the 1800s in a mining town in Oregon, or washington State. Prostitutes, card sharks, drunks and cowboys. Even the preacher caught a bullet before this wonderful story ended. I am so glad Leonard only got laid a lot, and lived to be a wonderful old musician. No bullets... he was only ever Love Struck.
One big regret I have, is not really paying attention, the first time I heard this good man. Because when I came around to having a song of his pop up in my feed, end of summer 2019, I so swiftly and sadly, learned, what I'd what I had missed. Dance Me To The End of Time. 🎵 Ever since, it would move me, and soothe me, just when I really needed it. Thank you, YT, for the pop up ! Thank you Leonard Cohen, for helping me carry my heavy heart ! 🙏 Man, I needed that help, that music, those songs. Right then. I'd imagine, that's what most artists, would like for their fans, to feel that, have that, comfort from their music, ease the pain, carry the spirit lost, till you feel it again. Thank you Leonard Cohen, and, all associates. Rest in Peace 🕊️ Leonard Cohen 🙏 Much Love 💙
LYRICS! 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 baby? 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 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
MARIAN KEOGH }}} They haven't "Passed On"...they're just "Passin thru"... Maestros like JJ & LC never really pass on,......they just shift their genius to another dimension.!!!....I bet they're still giving it Hell in Heaven.!!!
@@MSD1301 You act like you care about her but you can’t even spell Janis’s name right. Cohen already had “clout and fame” and would not have even been looking for that. As usual, he was telling a story, a story he later regretted for identifying with Janis. “He called it the ‘sole indiscretion in [his] professional life’ “. And if you knew anything about Janis, you’d know that she probably wouldn’t have cared at all. When I think about it, they probably had a great time together, birds of a feather. Other famous people should be lucky, “while the limousines wait in the street.”
@@ingefranz2013 Except it can't be true. Kristofferson didn't enter the scene until about '69, didn't meet Janis until '70, and Cohen always said his encounter with Joplin was in '67. Cohen began telling that story as metaphor - he said she was looking for Kristofferson, he was looking for Brigitte Bardot, i.e., they were both dreaming of far more beautiful people than they were. As he embellished the story over the years, it seems to have morphed into "she actually said that."
That's the irony. He wrote a whole song about a small affair he had and then the very last thing he says is "I don't even think of you that often." If that was true, then why would he write an entire song about it?
che williams........I believe you are right, I think he did think of Janis Joplin but seems a man of privacy. It is not what he says in situations like this,but what he does not say.............
I ran away from my small town in Ireland to see Leonard live in Dublin at age 14. My big sister was sent after me. There was graffiti on an overpass: " Get out your razorblades, LC is in town!" Years later I saw him in Carnegie Hall and rushed the stage to give him a bouquet of flowers as he began this song. Next evening I was recognized in the East Village as "that girl". Hahaha I wrote Jennifer Warnes, backup singer, a note when Leonard passed and she took the time to contact me back. Canadians...so nice
Oh man, flipping cool experience!!! Sounds like something I would have done🫂🫂💐💐💐💐💐💐 Hung out in the village jamming with the musicians 🎵🎶🎼🎹 I met Melanie... beautiful spirit she lite up that night still does.....thks for sharing your story 🗽🗽🎤☮️☮️
Wow. A great regret in my life is not having seen Mr. Cohen live. His music is truly on another level entirely. A true original if there ever was one..
"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." One of my all time favorites.
This breaks my heart. Poor Janice just wanted to be loved, something that most individuals on earth cal relate to. And even she wasn’t “loved the best” or “thought of that often”.
Leonard Cohen was my late fathers favorite singer❤️. I lost him this July. He loved music and he thaught me all about it. Thank you dad and rest easy❤️
lol...Just a few minutes ago I noticed one of the still clips of a video that RU-vid has on the right of the pages recommending other YT videos, anyway, I noticed one and said to myself "That's odd, why would a video of Anthony Bourdain pop up here?" Then I read the highlighted words...it was Cohen, not Bourdain. He looked so much like A.B. that I had to look closer to assure myself it wasn't really him. As of yet, without seeing the video and only gazing upon the small pic...I am not so assured.
He's a real poet and a true musician! Great music I can hear over and over and every single time seems like the first. I feel alive with Leonard. It makes laugh, makes me sad, makes cry, makes me dream. Thank you!
this song (and his little precursive explanation) makes me cry and i never cry. it gives me that weird happiness/sadness feeling that i simultaneously hate with a fire as hot and unwavering as the sun but continue to indulge myself with
I guess a lot of us are going to be re-visiting some of LC's live performances. This is a good one. What a song, what a dignity in the dude. Always thought he was more humane than Dylan, somehow more akin to Joni in the sense that he could just articulate that stupid impotent rage, and sadness, that we all get time from time. Those comparisons seem redundant anyway - I already miss him. My first time listening to him was on the Boxing Day of the tsunami in Thailand, up north in England where it was snowy and full of hills. LC... fewer fans than the other greats who died this year, but someone so lacking in affection - for all of his droll humour - and so full of love. Thanks for the memories, maybe we'll see you again x
I think you are unfair to Dylan. Listen to "North Country Blues" or "You're a Big Girl Now". Different temperaments. Dylan is a true Gemini, air sign, mercurial, fast, quick. Cohen's a Virgo, a more giving earth sign and very detail oriented. Thus many of his songs are like exquisite Bonsai trees, miniatures. Cohen did get very Dylan like political in later years; Everybody Knows, Closing Time, Democracy is Coming.
I discovered "Flowers for Hitler" by chance in a glass case in the Toronto University Library in the summer of 1966, but never read it, as I spent only one day in Toronto. In the fall of 1967 in the University of Rochester bookstore, I found his first album and bought it immediately - it was the only time I ever spontaneously bought an album of music that wasn't classical without having heard a single note of it beforehand. I immediately fell in love with the music and thought this was something very esoteric for a tiny circle intellectuals - never did it occur to me that Leonard Cohen would soon become one of the few artists who actually deserve to be a worldwide idol!
you will be greatly missed..... such a hard week.... I saw you perform in 1975 in a small bar in Denver and loved you from that moment on..... a great story goes with that too....
Dave Shepherd I love this song and Regina Spektor does a fantastic cover of it but just like Jeff Buckley’s version of “hallelujah” I still think Cohen did it best. And I’m saying this a huge fan of both of those musicians and I still think they both did very well with the source material.
I remember three of us going to see Janis Joplin in concert at Hunter College in 1967. At the time I lived on 26th Street and often walked past the Chelsea Hotel. You'd see limos waiting outside. For years walking past the hotel always brought this song to mind. We now live in Tucson, AZ. I went to the bathroom at a party of a friend of my husbands and there was a huge picture of Janis on the wall. I go out and say to my husband they sure like Janis Joplin mentioning the picture. My husband says, they should the host is her younger brother. Love them both. RIP Janis, RIP Leonard.
Julia Which he probably did after his passing. Although somehow I believe his hands would have been full after he met Marianne Jensen again and I doubt he’d spend time with J. Joplin there. He said it in the song it was a little relationship, so nothing that compares with what he felt for Marianne in my opinion. But I guess we will never know.
maybe you can get to see him. when you fall asleep on your bed at night, have this song playing on loop, and maybe you will see him. i will too, i hope i get to see him.
I reckon this was recorded on a vintage (now) Akai 4000 D reel to reel tape deck - anyone else recognise the good frequency response but lots of flutter ( on the guitar)
I missed him too. Only just barely. Discovered him too late. Kept watching for another tour but one day there was a picture of empty chairs they said he used to sit in, in the sunshine outside his home.
I stayed at the Hotel Chelsea once, and I took the stairs to and from my room every time because I wanted to soak in a bit more of the history and atmosphere. Now Leonard's story about the elevator is making me wish I'd climbed into that rickety thing at least once.
Leonards version is hypnotic....and Rufus Wainwright's cover, or more ode to rather, is equally as stunning in a much different way. they compliment each other brilliantly. im excited for baby Viva to get her voice, with her genes she could hold the world in her palm!
I love this song as much as the song Chris Christophersen wrote for Janis. She dies that night it was played for the first time in the morning. What was that name...."Me and Bobby McGee. They all where friends you know, and I mean all, except Jim Morrison who was a drunk(I love him) and was memoriesed by Janis, but sadly he was a heavy drinker at that time, and they never met again. Wish they had met when Jim was at his best, and sober. What a time of great music and musicians.1960-1974❤️🌈🌠☀️
My God such an incredible artist. He draws from a very deep well like very few others. one of my favorite songwriters. The only one I would put in Dylan's league.
mich erinnert das Lied an meine ersten Liebesnachmittage mit 15, wobei die Platte endlos lief und die Stimme für mich so schwul und so männlich war. Leonardo Cohan war die Begleitstimme zu meinen 7 Orgasmen an dem einen Nachmittag. Und begleitet mich noch immer.
I did not think that I would live to see this world without Leonard Cohen. I was stricken by his death in the reality of the lack of his dignified, wise and always classy presentations. Humble is a word he used many times over in different phrases and I was humble in the presence of his voice ~ his words because I was ~ I have been gazing into his soul since between the age of twelve to fifteen . I have since been compelled, mesmerized and breathless by his beauty in many imaginable ways. This man, this mortal like me man has touched my own soul over and over with his prophetic words. As we know what parts the lips to speak with our tongue comes from the heart of every human, I did not have to examine his heart or soul I did not have to question the validity his words I knew them as ' the truth '. Leonard had valor and street smarts, he was a gentleman and could throw down on a party I smile at the time he decided not to play, walked off stage and dropped some acid as only a Cohen moment ! My tears have been shed to say I will sorely miss him is a great understatement, I will miss loving him as a person and an artist. Good nite Leonard, my Leonard ... and although many loved you I am the only one who can love you the way I do. Are you smiling at me from the Celestial realm beautiful Angel? You're a shooting star now baby. Rest well away from this toiling burdensome world dear friend you live on ever in my heart until I am no more as you are now. " Sleep baby sleep " I love you.
Oh these were the times Janis had more talent in her little finger than Beyoncé has in her entire body but then again Janis was a great singer whereas Beyoncé is a product of marketing i mean she made cellulitis fashionable with her vulgar contortions.
