Idag lämnar jag lantlivet för att se Leonard Cohen på Malmö Arena. Det känns vemodigt och bitterljuvt – precis så som Cohen alltid har påverkat mig. Kanske har detäven med en sviktande sommar att göra.
Leonard Cohen – Take This Waltz
Det är det något väldigt nervigt i det tvåstämmiga arrangemanget. Jag är inte säker om rösterna riktigt hänger samman och just därför blir det så spännande. Texten lär vara inspirerad av Lorca. Bilderna flödar och ropar efter att tolkas – kanske är det mer värdigt att bara flyta med?Dessutom är han rolig.
Now in Vienna there’s ten pretty women
There’s a shoulder where Death comes to cry
There’s a lobby with nine hundred windows
There’s a tree where the doves go to die
There’s a piece that was torn from the morning
And it hangs in the Gallery of Frost
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws
Oh I want you, I want you, I want you
On a chair with a dead magazine
In the cave at the tip of the lily
In some hallways where love’s never been
On a bed where the moon has been sweating
In a cry filled with footsteps and sand
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take its broken waist in your hand
This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
With its very own breath of brandy and Death
Dragging its tail in the sea
There’s a concert hall in Vienna
Where your mouth had a thousand reviews
There’s a bar where the boys have stopped talking
They’ve been sentenced to death by the blues
Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture
With a garland of freshly cut tears?
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz it’s been dying for years
There’s an attic where children are playing
Where I’ve got to lie down with you soon
In a dream of Hungarian lanterns
In the mist of some sweet afternoon
And I’ll see what you’ve chained to your sorrow
All your sheep and your lilies of snow
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
With its “I’ll never forget you, you know!”
This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz …
And I’ll dance with you in Vienna
I’ll be wearing a river’s disguise
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,
My mouth on the dew of your thighs
And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
With the photographs there, and the moths
And I’ll yield to the flood of your beauty
My cheap violin and my cross
And you’ll carry me down on your dancing
To the pools that you lift on your wrist
Oh my love, Oh my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz
It’s yours now. It’s all that there is.
I förra veckan spelade Richard Lindgren en låt som han skrivit på Chelsea hotel i New York. Förhoppningsvis spelar Cohen denna sång:
Leonard Cohen – Chelsea Hotel #2
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.
I en annan minnesvärd tråd har Morrica och jag försökt reda ut Cohens förhållande till traditionell manlighet. Vi försökte i alla fall och jag har inga illusioner om att konserten ska lösa gåtan – om det nu är en sådan.
Tysta tankar 