Influences Part 1

OK, I'm not going to do this all at once, but here's a start:

LEONARD COHEN

Probably influenced my lyric-writing more than any other person. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I write like him, but studying his approach to writing lyrics and poetry helped shape the way that I write. Leonard Cohen has a real gift for telling you just enough about a person or a scene to create a picture in your mind, while still leaving enough to your imagination that you can truly make the scene your own. If I had to pick my favorite work of his, I'd say it's "Famous Blue Raincoat" - it's written as a letter to a forgotten friend and rival. Check out these excerpts:

It's four in the morning
the end of December;
I'm writing you now just
to see if you're better;
New York is cold but I
like where I'm living;
There's music on Clinton Street
all through the evening;

The last time I saw you
you looked so much older;
Your famous blue raincoat
was torn at the shoulder;
You'd been to the station
to meet every train;
But you came home alone
without Lilly Marlaine;
You treated my woman
to a flake of your life;
And when she came back
she was nobody's wife;

What can I tell you
my brother, my killer;
What can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you
I guess I forgive you;
I'm glad that you stood in my way;
If you ever come by here
for Jane or for me;
Your enemy is sleeping
and his woman is free;

Thanks for the trouble you
took from her eyes;
I thought it was there for good
so I never tried;

I see you there with a rose in your teeth;
One more thin gypsy thief;
I see Jane's awake
she sends her regards

and he ends it:

Sincerely, L. Cohen

Just amazing.

I don't know exactly what it is about that song that hits me so hard. It's a beautiful melody too, although Leonard doesn't have the sweetest voice in the world (look up Tori Amos' cover - it's worth it). I always go back to this song when I'm struggling with a lyric, and I ask myself "How can I say more with this line? How can I use one line to convey a feeling; a whole scene?" WWLCD? When I was writing the lyrics for The Barfly, I was trying to write a story without giving away all the pieces, and I was always thinking about the way the lyrics for Famous Blue Raincoat made me feel - and how personal an experience that song was. I attribute that connection to the fact that Cohen didn't TELL you the story, he SHOWED it to you. Just enough to pull you in. That was necessary when writing The Barfly, because the song was just TOO LONG and I had to cut, cut, cut. (Originally there were three more verses. Seriously.) I had to look at the story and decide which parts were superfluous, and what I could get rid of without losing the meaning of the song.

Incidentally, any time you read a lyric of mine and just can't for the life of you figure out what the hell I'm talking about, it's possibly an example of where I tried to do this and failed. There's a fine line between telling so much that there's no mystery, no imagination - and telling so little that there's no thread to grasp. Some lines in my songs are, like, the third lateral jump from the original metaphor, and then I cut the original metaphor out, and it's suddenly a lot harder to piece it together. So.... sorry about that. Work in progress. I also tend to finish lyrics about 30 seconds before I enter the booth to record them, so that doesn't help.

Other songs that really connect with me lyrically:

• Last Goodbye, by Jeff Buckley
• Stumbeline, by the Smashing Pumpkins
• Piano Man, by Billy Joel
• Subterranean Homesick Alien, by Radiohead
• Eleanor Rigby, by The Beatles
• John Wayne Gacy Jr., by Sufjan Stevens (and pretty much everything else, too)
• Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen
• Suzanne, by Leonard Cohen
• The Partisan, by Leonard Cohen (see a pattern?)
• Mr. Bojangles, by Jerry Jeff Walker

Hope that's a bit of a window, anyways. Till next time...