A quick question before I briefly and belatedly head off to WUS:
Why does Leonard Cohen have such a reputation for being gloomy? He’s just about the most inspring, feel-good songwriter I’ve ever come across. What about this, which got (I think) somewhat bizarrely used as a republican campaign song for the first Bush:
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
that time cannot decay,
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Or this, which apart from having become a kind of anthem for my family, almost makes you want to become a Jewish terrorist:
I’m guided by a signal in the heavens
I’m guided by this birthmark on my skin
I’m guided by the beauty of our weapons
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
or this fantastic bit of art-over-religion:
You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
And there’s so much more to him, and every verse has something special, and he is So Much Better than anybody else out there.
Now, off to the Kambar to dance to things that are loud and inane….