Wednesday's Emotional Setup: First We Take Manhatten
So I've been working on a mix for Aaron, to commemorate our mutual shitty year at the Ontarion. Last night I stayed up way too late trying to find more tracks on Winamp (or, if you prefer, listening to music) and playing FreeCell.
I'm pretty sure I've got a solid core of songs (definite inclusions are songs by
Fugazi, Lupine Howl, The Shins, The Fall, Bob Dylan, Readymade, Bright Eyes, King Cobb Steelie and the Rolling Stones), and I'm planning something a little different for the packaging, but it was also kind of disappointing. I ran into a bunch of songs I would love to include, only they don't fit the theme enough.
Chief among these songs that almost made me bend my own rules due to sheer coolness is Leonard Cohen's immortal "First We Take Manhatten", from 1988's I'm Your Man. Yes, I was young when I first heard it, and it sank its hooks deep, but I think it's great even beyond that, hinting at prophecy and terror.
Cohen's vocal performance here is one of his best; cavernous and magesterial, hissing and sinister, with the chuckle after the line "I thank you for those items that you sent me" being particularly captivating. And the lyrics are, of course, both great in execution and endlessly quotable (read them here), as is usually true of Cohen.
But the real reason for my enduring love of the song, I think, is Cohen's extremely nuanced writing and delivery. Are we supposed to empathize with the narrator, or not? There's ample evidence on each side.
Pro-narrator:
"They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom / For trying to change the system from within"
"I don't like your fashion business mister / And I don't like these drugs that keep you thin / I don't like what happened to my sister"
Anti-narrator:
"But you see that line there moving through the station? / I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those / Ah you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I just might win / You know the way to stop me, but you don't have the discipline / How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin / First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin"
Of course, the evidence on both sides is less than absolute but Cohen's protrayal of the narrator s enough to have me, at least, wavering back and forth. What I do know is that no popular musician since Elvis Costello has so skillfully and scarily merged together fascist imagry with emotional concerns, making it both plausible and somewhat terrifying.
Enhancing all this is the fact that by '88 Cohen's vocals had begun to acquire a hint of a rasp (which would weaken them in the the future, and indeed in The Future, but at this point just added character), and you've got possibly the creepiest synthpop song ever; that the refrain is sung is bright backup singers led by Jennifer Warnes only heightens the impact.
Oh, and the reasons I considered putting it in the mix for Aaron? The "20 years of boredom" and "...but you don't have the discipline" lines. Too tenuous, I think.
I'm pretty sure I've got a solid core of songs (definite inclusions are songs by
Fugazi, Lupine Howl, The Shins, The Fall, Bob Dylan, Readymade, Bright Eyes, King Cobb Steelie and the Rolling Stones), and I'm planning something a little different for the packaging, but it was also kind of disappointing. I ran into a bunch of songs I would love to include, only they don't fit the theme enough.
Chief among these songs that almost made me bend my own rules due to sheer coolness is Leonard Cohen's immortal "First We Take Manhatten", from 1988's I'm Your Man. Yes, I was young when I first heard it, and it sank its hooks deep, but I think it's great even beyond that, hinting at prophecy and terror.
Cohen's vocal performance here is one of his best; cavernous and magesterial, hissing and sinister, with the chuckle after the line "I thank you for those items that you sent me" being particularly captivating. And the lyrics are, of course, both great in execution and endlessly quotable (read them here), as is usually true of Cohen.
But the real reason for my enduring love of the song, I think, is Cohen's extremely nuanced writing and delivery. Are we supposed to empathize with the narrator, or not? There's ample evidence on each side.
Pro-narrator:
"They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom / For trying to change the system from within"
"I don't like your fashion business mister / And I don't like these drugs that keep you thin / I don't like what happened to my sister"
Anti-narrator:
"But you see that line there moving through the station? / I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those / Ah you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I just might win / You know the way to stop me, but you don't have the discipline / How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin / First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin"
Of course, the evidence on both sides is less than absolute but Cohen's protrayal of the narrator s enough to have me, at least, wavering back and forth. What I do know is that no popular musician since Elvis Costello has so skillfully and scarily merged together fascist imagry with emotional concerns, making it both plausible and somewhat terrifying.
Enhancing all this is the fact that by '88 Cohen's vocals had begun to acquire a hint of a rasp (which would weaken them in the the future, and indeed in The Future, but at this point just added character), and you've got possibly the creepiest synthpop song ever; that the refrain is sung is bright backup singers led by Jennifer Warnes only heightens the impact.
Oh, and the reasons I considered putting it in the mix for Aaron? The "20 years of boredom" and "...but you don't have the discipline" lines. Too tenuous, I think.
