Best Leonard Cohen song.

[Wat_Tyler]

I should of course split this up into pre- and post-1979, but I'm a bastard. So there.

Bonus points for outlandish theories on what exactly 'First We Take Manhattan' is about.

I know there's no other option, but really, I needed the space. It hurts to leave out Famous Blue Raincoat, Take This Longing, I'm Your Man, Tower Of Song, Closing Time and Chelsea Hotel #2.

[Fenris]

1. Jazz Police

Oh, wait, you said best.

[Wat_Tyler]

3. Jazz Police is funny, though.

[Fenris]

7. It's funny in an "Oh my God, he wrote and recorded this?" sort of way.

I think my favorite song of his would be "Sisters of Mercy"," but I will always have a place in my heart for "The Future," if only for the line, "I have seen the future/it is murder."

[Wat_Tyler]

10. He's a really funny guy.

Why else the cheap Casio organs and really inappropriate Whitney Houston backing vocals?

[Fenris]

13. Well he can't blame it on drugs...

So I suppose it must be humor.

[Susang]

8. No fair picking the same song as I did!

:P

[Fenris]

11. Yes, but I assure you I chose that song with more irony than you did!

:P

[Susang]

17. Did not!

I'm way more ironic than you are! :P :P :P

[Debi]

2. Can I vote for the top five songs

I haven't listened in so long...the memories...

[brentspeak]

4. I chose "Suzanne" based on my limited knowledge of Cohen's songs

I first heard "Suzanne" as covered by Pearls Before Swine, then later purchased "The Best of Leonard Cohen", so I'm ignorant of all his post 70's music, except for "Everybody Knows".

[Julius Civitatus]

5. Chelsea Hotel

Man, you forgot to include "Chelsea Hotel," possibly the saddest, most evocative song in his repertoire.

[Susang]

6. Jazz Police!

I kid, I kid! :D

Of course the answer is, there is no best Leonard Cohen song. You either hate him or you love everything he's ever written, even Jazz Police. ;-)

[Wat_Tyler]

9. I think he's hilarious.

I don't see the 'old gloomy guts' that others see in him - I see a wry, witty guy with insight.

[Susang]

16. I'm firmly in the "love him" category

So you'll hear no argument from me. After all, he wrote this, didn't he?

Can you tell me why the bells are ringing?
Nothing's happened in a million years
I've been sitting here since Wednesday morning
Wednesday morning can't believe my ears
Jazz police are looking through my folders
Jazz police are talking to my niece
Jazz police have got their final orders
Jazzer, drop your axe, it's Jazz police!

Jesus taken serious by the many
Jesus taken joyous by a few
Jazz police are paid by J. Paul Getty
Jazzers paid by J. Paul Getty II

Jazz police I hear you calling
Jazz police I feel so blue
Jazz police I think I'm falling,
I'm falling for you

Wild as any freedom loving racist
I applaud the actions of the chief
Tell me now oh beautiful and spacious
Am I in trouble with the Jazz police?

Jazz police are looking through my folders ...

They will never understand our culture
They'll never understand the Jazz police
Jazz police are working for my mother
Blood is thicker margarine than grease

Let me be somebody I admire
Let me be that muscle down the street
Stick another turtle on the fire
Guys like me are mad for turtle meat

Jazz police I hear you calling
Jazz police I feel so blue
Jazz police I think I'm falling,
I'm falling for you

[Wat_Tyler]

18. My favourite line is 'I was born with the gift of a golden voice'.

Genius.

[Susang]

19. Mine's the one about J. Paul Getty & J. Paul Getty II

I don't know why, but that always struck me as hysterical. :shrug:

[eyesroll]

21. I just pulled this up on iTunes --

Is that the "Star Trek" theme I hear?

:P

[redqueen]

12. Other - Light as the Breeze

Tough choice, though.

[eyesroll]

14. I like "Who By Fire," because it makes me think of High Holidays services

at synagogue as a kid.

[BillZBubb]

15. "The Partisan"

Also, "Seems so long ago".

[regnaD kciN]

20. Stories Of The Street

The stories of the street are mine,the Spanish voices laugh.
The Cadillacs go creeping now through the night and the poison gas,
and I lean from my window sill in this old hotel I chose,
yes one hand on my suicide, one hand on the rose.

I know you've heard it's over now and war must surely come,
the cities they are broke in half and the middle men are gone.
But let me ask you one more time, O children of the dusk,
All these hunters who are shrieking now oh do they speak for us?

And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?
Why are the armies marching still that were coming home to me?
O lady with your legs so fine O stranger at your wheel,
You are locked into your suffering and your pleasures are the seal.

The age of lust is giving birth, and both the parents ask
the nurse to tell them fairy tales on both sides of the glass.
And now the infant with his cord is hauled in like a kite,
and one eye filled with blueprints, one eye filled with night.

O come with me my little one, we will find that farm
and grow us grass and apples there and keep all the animals warm.
And if by chance I wake at night and I ask you who I am,
O take me to the slaughterhouse, I will wait there with the lamb.

With one hand on the hexagram and one hand on the girl
I balance on a wishing well that all men call the world.
We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky,
and lost among the subway crowds I try to catch your eye.

[saltpoint]

22. Went with "Sisters of Mercy."

"...and it won't make me jealous
If I learn that they've sweetened your night
We weren't lovers like that
And besides, it would still be alright."

Leonard Cohen rules.


(great poll, Wat_Tyler -- thanks)

[Withywindle]

23. You left out "Take This Waltz" and "Avalanche"

Therefore I cannot vote. :(


OK, I will, I'll pick something beautiful at random outta there.

[gollygee]

24. I like Famous Blue Raincoat

and Chelsea Hotel. . .

But yeah there isn't space for everything.

[Julius Civitatus]

26. I love that song too

It actually tells a very sad and sweet story.

[Magrittes Pipe]

25. First We Take Manhattan

Because it was about his unrequited love for Terri Nunn.