We’re tired of being white and we’re tired of being black
Tired
We’re tired of being white
and we’re tired of being black,
and we’re not going to be white
and we’re not going to be black any longer.
We’re going to be voices now,
disembodied voices in the blue sky,
pleasant harmonies in the cavities of your distress.
And we’re going to stay this way until you straighten up,
until your suffering makes you calm,
and you can believe the word of G-d who has told you so many times,
and in so many ways, to love one another,
or at least not to torture and murder
in the name of some stupid vomit-making human idea that makes G-d turn away from you,
and darken the cosmos with inconceivable sorrow.
We’re tired of being white and we’re tired of being black,
and we’re not going to be white and we’re not going to be black any longer.
We’re going to be voices now.
— Leonard Cohen, Book of Longing
Tired by Leonard Cohen from Book of Longing, followed by Suzanne.
From a live concert Who By Fire?, First Aid Kit and friends, a concert of poetry and music Stockholm 2017 to commemorate the life of Leonard Cohen.
In 1960 Leonard Cohen bought a house on the Greek Island of Hydra.
Once you’ve lived on Hydra you can’t live anywhere else, including Hydra. — Kenneth Koch
Leonard Cohen wished for somewhere quiet to write. He left Montreal on his first trip outside North America with a Canadian Arts Council Grant of $2,000 and one published book of poetry. He was writing a novel or trying to, blackening the pages three pages a day. Hydra seemed the ideal place, warm and sunny, especially compared with cold and grey and damp London. He arrived on Hydra with his green Olivetti. He had taken up an offer of Barbara Rothschild to stay on the island, only when he arrived at the house and mentioned her name, he was turned away by the housekeeper ‘we don’t need any more Jews here’. Leonard Cohen put a curse on the house and within six months it had burnt to the ground.
Prior to the purchase of his house, Charmian Clift and George Johnston offered a room in their house. He would sit writing on their terrace.
It was on Hydra he met Marianne and where he wrote ‘So Long Marianne’ and ‘Bird on the Wire’.
In a letter to his mother:
It has a huge terrace with a view of dramatic mountain and shining white houses. The rooms are large and cool with deep windows set in thick walls. I suppose it’s about 200 years old and many generations of sea-.men must have lived here. I will do a little work on it every year and in a few years it will be a mansion… I live on a hill and life has been going on here exactly the same for hundreds of years. All through the day you hear the calls of the street vendors and they are really rather musical… I get up around 7 generally and work till about noon. Early morning is coolest and therefore best, but I love the heat anyhow, especially when the Aegean Sea is 10 minutes from my door.
What more could an unknown writer ask for?
He was part of a group of writers and artist and poets who used to meet at Κατσικάς Katsikas.
One of his friends Charmian Clift wrote Peel Me A Lotus her account of living on Hydra in the late 1950s.
They were all cursed. Charmian Clift killed herself after leaving Hydra, George died a year later.
His first concert in Australia was dedicated to the couple and he opened with ‘Bird on the Wire’.
We have photographer James Burke to thank for a series of photographs of these days in 1960 on Hydra.
A Theatre for Dreamers a fictional account by Polly Samson seen through the eyes of an 18-year-old girl, who with a thousand pounds left to her by her mother escapes from an abusive father. She reads a book Peel Me A Lotus by Charmian Clift, sent to her mother by the author a close friend of her mother, of life on Hydra. She remembers the friend of her mother from when she was a child and writes to her asking if she can find her a room to rent.
We start in 2016, Leonard Cohen has recently died, a very sad loss, and Trump has won the US Presidential elections. Word reaches Hydra ‘and spread rapidly like a stench along the agora. There were horrified groans, even from the donkeys, disbelieving splutters from every table, passer-by and boat. For a moment it was a comfort to think at least Leonard had been spared this.’
Who By Fire – Leonard Cohen, featuring artwork by Matthew Schwartz.
And who by fire, who by water,
Who in the sunshine, who in the night time,
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial,
Who in your merry merry month of may,
Who by very slow decay,
And who shall I say is calling?
And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate,
Who in these realms of love, who by something blunt,
And who by avalanche, who by powder,
Who for his greed, who for his hunger,
And who shall I say is calling?
And who by brave assent, who by accident,
Who in solitude, who in this mirror,
Who by his lady’s command, who by his own hand,
Who in mortal chains, who in power,
And who shall I say is calling?
The Civil Wars cover version of classic Leonard Cohen song Dance Me to the End of Love.
The first video is very French, even down to the grainy black and white. If compared with new stuff on their website which is very slick and polished, this is far superior.
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