Leonard Cohen, A Bunch Of Lonesome Heroes

[cirrus2525]

Good job! This song is fabulous.

[bowlbrawl]

jpeg videos are the best. especially when the lyric says "apple" and you show an "apple" i just wanted to hear this great canadian song yall. i've turned into gold.

[onlinelondon]

This is my favourite Cohen song....

Bringing so much of memories with it....

Eerie and beautiful in a terrible mixture of thoughts and heart beats....

[uclrichard]

i sing this for the cricket (my favourite sport) i sing this for the army (although i don't agree with the war...i think we should pool our nuclear resources and blow up afganistan and pakistan)...anyone agree?

[OsamaBinForgotten2]

NO. You are deceived and under educated or you would be able to see the truth.

[uclrichard]

YES - and you, friend, are decieved by my irony and black humour...and if you don't understand these things - why listen to cohen?

[OsamaBinForgotten2]

Our education system has been controlled for a century. We (all of Americans) are not really educated. Nonetheless I did miss the satire of your comment-It pleases me to know that what you said was satire.

[emopopcorns]

This kindof sounds exactly like So long Marianne at parts.

[parisianna87]

this songs for the losing team

[nickischull]

Lame. You know not not what you mock.

[eskimolament]

this song was sung for everyone. from the army, to the crickets. the crickets were entitled to some images too. so was i and so were you.

[tonnoz]

you completely screwed the meaning of the song by showing you childish, empty minded war games. It seems to me that people who simulate war like you do must like some way or another. L Coehn surely thought about it the opposite way round.

[lilifyre]

War IS hell! Old men declare wars. Young men (and women) fight them...and die in them. There is no good war. Both sides claim to have "God on their side", but war is man's invention, not God's. The young who fight are pawns on this chessboard of hatred.

[alannigelmarshall]

I wanted to save this song to my favorites since it has been for many years, but the video out me iff....I had a very different image of the song and it screws my head up a but to see all these soldiers automatically take in hero status in a very shallow interpretation of the song..

[louiseduvee]

Yeah...but I can switch off my sight.

[Oberonius]

@alannigelmarshall

"I sing this for the crickets, I sing this for the army, I sing this for you children"

It's not about war heroes man. It's about people that has passed through suffering for someone else, but nobody really cares.That doesn't necessarily have to be a soldier.

And one more thing: just becouse you don't like the army, you can't say that there ain't no heroes in it. Sorry for the poor english

[onlinelondon]

@Oberonius

Correct!!

[boseffis]

great song, but i think it's a little out of cohen's vocal range.

[Eagleray99]

I'd go along with most of that....I think the Nazis were brutal killers who had to be stopped and the Taliban are muslim fascists who want to drag the world back to the middle ages.

[OsamaBinForgotten2]

The taliban are entitled to believe what they believe is right. Foriegn occupation is something that they believe is wrong.

[Eagleray99]

No, I don't agree with uclrichard. I believe that education is the key to enlightenment.  I do agree that the Taliban have the right to oppose foreign occupation, but that does not mean that I support their right to keep women ignorant and downtrodden, nor to kill in the name of medieval religious savagery.

For those reasons, they should be attacked and defeated.

[fleadle34]

@Eagleray99 Buddhas teachings are the key to enlightenment !

[whiterchocolate]

@Eagleray99 so if some other country doesn't agree with us they should come here and kill us? you know america is not a bunch of saints read some history. here are a few topics if you care eugenics in america , Tuskegee experiment, infecting Guatemalans with syphilis , depleted uranium in Iraq and Afghanistan, sv-40 virus in polio vaccine, Halliburton sex trade, and probably the worst of all the jersey shore . but really read about some of this stuff for a few hours then tell me about it

[Eagleray99]

@whiterchocolate I think it is more complex than that. A fascist is someone who believes that the state should be the organ that decides the way that a society should be run as opposed to the people deciding. And yes, i do believe that there are situations where intervention is correct, Those who say that intervention is hypocritcically selective are correct up to a point, but one cannot really say that Afghanistan is about oil. It is, to a great degree, a genuine war of self-defence.

[zeldagoblin]

Believing is one thing. Acting on their sick beliefs to cause harm is quite another. Their beliefs have caused tyranny and anguish.

[whiterchocolate]

@Eagleray99 haha do you even know what a fascist is?

[Eagleray99]

The second half of the video is okay...some of the men in Vietnam became lonesome heroes. I am very much a pacifist, but I respect those who face horror with courage, be they military or civilian. And the vid ends with the dead and wounded, which is somewhat redemptive. I don't think it is profane, just a bit simplistic i.e. look: some heroes!

Most soldiers are villains, historically, but they were deliberately brutalised. I was in the forces myself, but never had to fire a shot in anger.

[uclrichard]

i am partly a pacifist - but i think the fight against the taliban is a justified war - rather like the fight against the nazis...or the fight against charles I...in that sense, i think this song is ironically dedicated to our soldiers (american and english) against these muslim moronic murdering cunts...

[0jumanji0]

a bunch of jerks ruins the whole song...this is inappropriate....

This is profane

This is an insult to Cohen

[uclrichard]

well said, sir.

this song is an ironic insult to the idea of conventional manhood.

note - the way len pronounces the word 'heroes'...

[drumrun]

It's just ONE interpretation. Take it easy. You big crybaby

[uclrichard]

who's crying? not me.

i'm english. i've paid for my house. i'm still in my 30s. i will cancel my trip to america, though...until the pound recovers...we didn't start this shit...

[gonzostew]

Hey, evenhellhasitsheroes, you haven't a clue have you.

[romber58]

I think that i would do a different clip to this song now if could be bothered to,but i cant coz all that pointless propaganda crap does not interest me anymore,sincerely,J Goebbels.

[InsaneCrazyArt]

The song of course says much more than these photos portray. Just one of many views this song has.

[seamonkey41]

thanks

[jarnestrom]

A bunch of guys showing off with their rifles to their girlfriends? I never saw a more blatant misfit between pics and lyrics since I registered in YT. Shame for such a good song! Cohen wouldnt have approved, that's for sure!

[alannigelmarshall]

ooooooooooh...no...the pics don't fit the song at all. The lack of your subtelty shows why war is going to be hard to overcome.

[zeldagoblin]

i agree.....all a little too gung ho patriotism. Cohen's songs portrayed a far more poignant message about the futility of war.. I'm thinking The Partisan, and The Old Revolution...

[natalialove]

sorry - bad spelling in comment #3 of mine.

[natalialove]

i did get the impression from the other part of the interview, that he is still some kind of buddhist, though not properly really a monk, that was only for propriety at the time he spent with Yoshi. but i could have understood wrong.

[natalialove]

and basically told him to do what he was there for, because it was all sort of fate or part of the plan, and in the grand scheme of things it didn't matter that he would kill these people.

i don't really agree with this story, but there it was on the interview. so i am not sure what L.Cohen thinks of war or if this quote applies to that or to something else entirely...

[natalialove]

there is an interesting quote on the I'm Your Man video where he tells a story from (Hindu?) legend, about a warrior who was about to fight a battle and looked out and saw the opponents included relatives of himself and also gurus (teachers) and even children. and he asked a god about this and the god said "can't you realize that they are already dead, and so are you!"

[umgowa48]

For those who served and lost their lives in the Rhodesian Conflict... a very fitting memory... remember the day well.

[RaulMonkey]

Some may have gotten the impression Cohen had gone Buddhist when he spent a number of years at the Zen Center on Mount Baldy, but as he explains in the new documentary I'M YOUR MAN, it was simply a matter of being able to spend time with his good friend, Roshi, which meant donning the robes and living a monastic lifestyle. For a very terse declaration of Cohen's religious affiliation, check out NOT A JEW on the Blackening Pages at leonardcohenfilesdotcom

[RaulMonkey]

Then again you've also got THE STORY OF ISAAC which strikes me, for the time at which it was written, to be one of Cohen's most topical songs, having very much to do with the Americans in Vietnam while being presented in a very universal context.

[RaulMonkey]

Cohen probably has little desire to fight with others, but that's not the same as being *anti-war*. Many of Cohen's songs explore the beauty of war and the necessity of enemies. On SFAR alone you've got A BUNCH OF LONESOME HEROES, THE PARTISAN and THE OLD REVOLUTION.

[RaulMonkey]

Leonard Cohen is neither left wing, a Buddhist or a pacifist. Watch the TAKE 30 interview with Adrienne Clarkson where he talks about 'taking sides,' "...which is something I don't usually like to do..." or see the lyrics from DEMOCRACY where the singer states, "And I'm neither left or right / I'm just stayin' home tonight / Gettin' lost in that hopeless little screen."

[williamtaylor73127]

check out cohen on natural born killers soundtrack

[pauliepauln]

I can only agree with what has already been said, Cohen a left wing buddhist and pacifist wouldn't be too chuffed by this video.

[pinkrabbi]

suckers

[markhynde]

i love this song

[hoboscholar]

he did say he sang it for the army too.

[gonzostew]

Got it! Reminds me of certain members of our Rugger Club back in the late 60's, staggering home after a game, having missed all forms of transport and becoming somewhat philosophical.

[speedyfis]

Also I do not think that the doer of this video, the words of Leonard Cohen's song associated with the video. The artist corresponded that around a film Trading. the pictures of Vietnam, are anyway a reality and not to edge out. It is bad enough, that in all shit to wars so many people, had to die. the people of the whole world should practice more tolerance. Forgiveness, but this is my opinion

[speedyfis]

there will be always people, not really understand somewhat of artistic freedom. because already begins, the intolerance of the people, unfortunately. But it is really good that there is different tastes. how dull would be the world if everybody liked the same one.

[babylonsjoke]

terrible! r u kidding me???? take this garbage down!  worst sensationalized waste i've seen in awhile...terrible!

[negativethinking]

i think exactly the same

[Dalbert342]

me either,chip

[myspacecomchip]

i dont think leonard cohen was speaking of the us military when he wrote this.