Added: 5 years ago
From: rocanon
Views: 1,217,587
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  • This song brings tears to eyes.

  • @rocanon great editing to a great song and a great Altman film!

    mucho thanx!!!

  • getting mighty sick of these sodding ads. having to sit through a minute long ad for some crappy war based video game before listening to something as wonderful as this just seems all wrong.

  • @SquishedButterfly Yes, they suck ... but it sure beats having to pay to use YouTube. It costs a lot of money to run this site, since people are constantly uploading videos, which requires bandwidth, which isn't free.

    Hey, I'm a realist and a capitalist. I don't like ads getting in front of a great song/video anymore than you do, but it pays for the site and keeps it 100% FREE for you and me. So, because of that, I can't complain about the ads too much.

  • @MaximillianZakes the trouble is that if it ends up being an ad before every vid, the ad to entertainment ratio will be far too high. the people that run this site get tons out of having millions of users, and can easily survive without an ad before every vid.

    As far as I understand it, the video uploaders can refuse the offer of making revenue from their successful vids. Why don't they? I did. I don't imagine they get much money so why make their viewers suffer this crass trash.

  • @SquishedButterfly Sorry for the late reply.

    Yes, a full ad before every video would suck, but the uploader isn't entirely responsible, if I'm not mistaken. If a person uploads something that gets content matched (like this song), if the copyright holders want to, an ad will run either on or before the video so that they can get money.

    There are a few videos that don't have ads before them, but, like you said, the number grows smaller every day.

  • This clip is the most beautiful harmony of music, poetry, and cinematography. If it's NOT perfect, it is splendidly close.

  • This is my favorite Leonard Cohen song.  It's perfect.

  • Thanks rocanon for this brilliant video.

  • the band, sisters of mercy took their name from the sisters of mercy, not this song...

  • @skidrowsux1977 the band...sisters of mercy, claim they took it from this song, but wikipedia, their quotes in various music magazines..and all other sources on the internet could be wrong, thats true.

  • This is a thing of rare beauty

  • lovely ♥

  • Love Leonard Cohen

    Love McCabe and Mrs Miller

    Love The Sisters of Mercy

  • I love this song!

  • relaxing song but i popped a nut thinking this was a "the sisters of mercy" song -.-

  • I think you mean "Leonard Cohen - Sisters of Mercy".

  • It was rumored this song was written about Leonard's brief flirtation with Scientology, but who care's as in all music it is what it means to you!

  • Beautiful images to go with this song

  • Avec ces petits instruments si particuliers qui scellent la Volonté.

  • i know this singer from a book.because i love this book i thought i have to listen to leonard cohen.and i'm so glad that i did this.he's so great.i like his music so much<3

  • A long time ago,in a land faraway ,I was a boy who became a man.The love I had was for a girl ,who also became a woman .I wonder if she remembers me?This was one of her favorite songs,as well as Lola by the Kinks.The past becomes clearer.While the future grows dim.

  • @peter2156 Haha, I was just listening to Lola, but no, i'm not the girl..

  • beth ormond did this song on im your man by leonard cohen.i really love that version.she is awesone.cold chills down my spine and all of that!

  • The free thinkers of the Arts will always outnumber the prune face shrill voiced self proclamed censors of the media.

  • the band sisters of mercy took their name from this song

  • @TheMaestroB surely

  • @TheMaestroB Really? Wow.. What a totally uninteresting fucking comment. Just shut the fuck up and listen to the song. Just because you CAN comment doesn't mean you SHOULD.. Dope

  • @samooskhka okay, sorry.

  • Thumbs up if you were looking for this but found The Sisters of Mercy first! ;-)

  • Wonderful.

  • Brilliant film, and an even more brilliant song. Perfect match really.

  • This song got me through he loss of my first love.

    But the good news is she took me back.

    If you love something let it go, if it comes back then it was truly meant to be.

    This song is for everyone, from Leonard.

  • I love Leonard Cohen with a passion, but sometimes I listen to him and think he could make mr happy a bit wearisome.

  • @123jsbach

    he has his spot, but if not check mister tickle

  • I found them. I never moved on. It is heaven indeed.

  • Such a touching moving song,.

  • that is Shelly Duvall, one of Robert Altman's favorite actresses to have work with. Not one of Stanley Kubrick's favorites though.

  • is that shelly duval,jack nicolas didnt like her.len is god

  • Leonard's songs are so magic, the music unsurpassable except perhaps by his lyrics.

    He is truly a poet, I can't think of any songs as beautiful as suzanne, bird on a wire, or sisters of mercy.

    On a side note;

    The sisters of mercy didn't bother to wait for 28 people...

  • I like just about every Leonard Cohen song I've ever heard... but I always thought this one was a little better than the rest.

  • 1 million views. About time :P

  • McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a masterpiece.

  • <3

  • sincerely, l. cohen.

    leonard cohen is truly a god amongst songwriters <3

  • This is certainly a great song, and put to good use in McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Washington is a humble state with a dark and bloody history, accurately portrayed in the movie.

  • This is a great song, and put to great use in McCabe and Mrs. Miller. The State of Washington has a long and dark history, and the movie was certainly accurate in a spiritual sense.

  • Comment removed

  • Leonard's Sisters opf Mercy is one song that I can never get out of my mind; it is sad yet so real and touching. I also recall the Me and Mrs. McCabe as one my favorite movies.

  • I love the Judy Collins version.

  • @BigBillsdiggs Personally, George Hamilton IVth is my favourite.........

  • From the exquisite and never shown movie, McCabe & Mrs Miller. I bless and thank every soul with whom mine shared comfort & laughs away from the world outside.

  • @verbaud Thankyou so much for the name of the Movie, yes I saw it many Years ago on late night NZ Sky movies and being a Leonard Cohen fan I loved it but could never remember the name of the movie, now I can try and find a copy. thankyou again.

  • He makes the lovers who love and move on sound like a sweet dream. Such gentleness. Such gratefulness. Such celebration.

  • This song, like so many other Leonard Cohen songs, is a work of genius...Cohen was and is a Canadian legend.

  • The video is an excerpt of the movie 'McCabe and Mrs. Miller'.

    Wonderful music.

  • All the great music has already been created. Leonard did his share.

  • @jamesisadouche What you mean with "Werd"?

  • Thanks Cohen for this lovely song. I also listen to it in a Swedish version by Ebba Forsberg. In both versions it is up to the message anyway. Lovely! Gabriel of Sweden

  • Listening to this song makes you think your travelling thru time...

  • Listen VERY close.

  • Good song

  • If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn,

    They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.

  • The best song he ever did

  • His best track ever.

  • Its not fair. I want to be a musical genius too.

    Mr. Cohen, days are sunnier with your music.

  • I'm kept standing at the gate. They shave my head, and they lead me away. They show me the night as it seems to one sitting at the charnel ground. The lake at the temple is remembered with old age. And the forest around us is dense and kept all alone. They showed me the truth, and it colored my clothes, as I rose from the grass in the morning. I slept, I admit I was wrong. But when I was dying they chanted my name from the hall.
  • @pondfrogplop excuse me. where are those lines from?

  • @pondfrogplop where is this from?

  • Comment removed

  • It is not strange at all that most men will see a sublime insperation in this beautiful song.Take care ADonovan43

  • I love the image of Cohen writing this by the light of the moon in a snowbound hotel, while a couple of strange young women sleep in his bed. Maybe one of them looked like Shelly Duval -or Julie Christie, if he was really lucky.

  • Thumbs up if you came here looking for The Sisters of Mercy

  • @wralphh

    o_o you do know that they named their band after this song, i'm sure ;)

  • This is one of my favourites by Leonard Cohen I love it!

  • Perfect clip to a divine song

  • "if your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn, they will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem" best lyric ever imho

  • This is beautiful <3

  • I think that seeing this film by Warren Beatty, knowing at the time in the theatre his choice of Leonard Cohen's recordings as a soundtrack was box office suicide but artistic brilliance is essential in understanding this video. Recording done long before screenplay. This was the first time I took serious notice of Warren as an artist. Love/d this film. And then came Reds. LC and WB together in a movie theatre far from the skid row of NYC-peak experience.

  • This is the song that brought the great man into my life in almost 40 years ago-Thank you Leonard.

  • The movie accompanying the song is McCabe and Mrs. Miller, directed by Robert Altman and starring Julie Christie, Warren Beatty and Shelly Duvall, filmed in the early '70s in British Columbia.

  • Good movie!

  • Sting's Celtic version is much more beautiful!

  • @Qwerti60 Both are great--a radio programming guy told me once that we tend to favor the first version of a song we hear over 90% of the time. The younger we are when we first hear the song, the more this is true. I heard LC's first but Sting's is great too!!!!!!!

  • Did you hear Sting's & Chieftan's version? I can give you a link to their version

  • @Qwerti60 Yes--I have the CD from a few years back--2 other great covers on it are Aaron Neville's "There Ain't No Cure For Love" and Trisha Yearwood's "Comin' Back To You. And on the latest tribute CD--Teddy Thompson's "Tonight Will Be Fine" and "The Future." Love those LC tribute CDs!!!

  • Great! You know that Irish Traditional music is much more beautiful than Pop music!

  • what movie is in the background?

  • @lollipopfop Read the video description...

  • Is anyone capable of putting this song to some stills of the young lads who were in World War One.?

  • Is anyone capable of putting this song to some stills of the young lads who were in World War One.?

  • Shelly Duval is so beautiful and brilliant in this movie!

    

  • Why's it in black and white?

  • Brilliant,long live Leonard Cohen and his beautiful songs

  • Memories :)

  • i thought it was about nuns!

  • @louelladevlille No, sex, it's what you shout.

  • This song and the film are so significant to me. You're going to say I'm ridiculous, but it's true so fuck off. The song was one of the reasons, one of the little doubts I used to get me through the worst withdrawal I ever had from addiction. The irony of it is that the film I can't watch because I was the highest and happiest I ever was when I saw it and now when I see the film, my favorite, and even just her opium smile there I get MASSIVE pangs. Is the film really beautiful? The song is

  • such a fuc**** beautiful song, great lyrics

  • I think music was a very essential element of that great movie, which is Altman's best in my category.

  • a beutyful song !

  • ://=oBFQg7P5YKw,

  • ...743 843 2789....

  • Well I've been where you're hanging

    I think I can see how you're pinned

    When you're not feeling holy

    Your loneliness says that you've sinned

  • Composer, Artist, Poet, Genius

  • The "prostitutes" are from McCabe & Mrs Miller - a film that used Leonard Cohen's songs in the soundtrack.

  • I love this song but prostitutes? WTF?

  • @g0ldb3rg3r Hey you idiot of morons. Leonard Chen is a Canadian and one of the greatest musicians in the world. He is a practicing Zen Buddhist monk so get your facts right. The only thing you probably accomplished in your life can be summed up by the ignorance of your comments.

  • Wish someone would put up the Judy Collins version of his song.

  • everything you need to know about life can be found in one Leonard Cohen song or another

  • @andy191266 You know; that is almost right! I found my sisters of mercy in 1968 and I bless them as they blessed me.

  • I live in Arizona, and in 1967 when I heard my first LC song I was in high school. I've been a fan since, and many of his songs have been like soundtracks for my life. In reading this I can see I'm not alone. Now that is called sweetening of my night...

  • Hey, I hear he sang like Simon and Garfulkel. Did they sing in the same kind of music? The kind's like Folk...

  • We werent lovers like that and again it would be all right. shoudl explain the song.

  • This is about affection and respect.  Nothing less. Beautiful.

  • I didn't hear Leonard until 1976. I've been a fan ever since. This is one of my favorites. Teddy Thompson does a great version of Tonight will be Fine(may have that title wrong)

  • Ah...Mr. Cohen. When I was a young man in the late sixties, he was one of the best parts of the soundtrack of my enfolding life at that time. "Bird on the Wire" used to make me weep.

  • Best Film ....Ever.

    A love story to beat them all.

  • A guy who takes around a year to finish a song dose not deserve rash explanations for his art......

  • His voice just gets better as he gets more perspective on life.

  • Maybe the Hallelujah nubs can start covering this one

  • so want to see this!!!

  • legend

  • musically and lyrically, absolutely his best song.....most memorable and lasting

  • ...and besides it would still be alright

  • Thank you Leonard Cohen for this wonderful song. And for you intrinsic music. Just listening to you and your poetry is a holistic moment that cries out for love in this world. "You can read their address by the moon."

  • @rfish54 here here.i concur with you.i seen leonard in sydney recently.and i walked away feeling that my soul had been thoroughly nourished hes much older than when i first heard him in 1978 but his voice has lost none of its tenure.

  • nice catholic ladies

  • Magic, love this

  • wat a song

  • MAGIC !

  • 456

  • @m74k3H though I was hoping SoM did a song called "Leonard Cohen"

  • say 123 if u got here form "sisters of mercy" the goth band -.-

  • say 456 if you like both artists and already knew that the "goth" band probably named themselves after cohen's song

  • @sinnerx923 123 :-)

  • 123 u.ú

  • great job! great film! great song!

  • You know what I truly love about Leonard Cohen is his music is for all occasions when you are at the pinnacle of happiness of if your down and out and can hardly face the world you can always find some thing that Leonard can relate to .

  • It's about all of you that are worn out by "Life". Comparing Jesus Christ "hanging from pins" to the beauty and purity of a woman that you have not had yet. Peace and comfort that you get laying besides her...

  • The video is from the Movie "Macabe and Mrs. Miller - Warren Beatty and Julie Christie - they opened a "house" in 19th century Oregon. They used this song and many other Leonard Cohen tunes as the backdrop. That's why y'all think it's about prostitutes.

  • Reductive?! Come to Norway, a land where all is reduced and streamlined until it's about money or nothing at all. Are you a publisher? Have all your books translated to Norwegian and then have them quote/sell it all back to you as though they were theirs to start with. Ahh, so streamlined. So effektivt! So ... reduced.

  • It's not "ABOUT" prostitutes. Cohen said some young women were stranded during a snowstorm and he invited them to stay in his hotel room. They slept and he wrote this song--he claims--the fastest of any he's ever done. Besides, saying a song is "About" something ruins it. Try checking out the amazing poetry, alliteration and imagery. And this gorgeous melody. Don't be so reductive.

  • @peterzang Very close. Cohen tells the complete story of this song on the bootleg recording, "Complete BBC 2 Broadcast, 31 Aug 1968" about two girls from Edmonton in 1965. I won't give it away. Go on Captain Crawl and search it out for yourself.

  • @peterzang That's fine. But wouldn't a song honoring two prostitutes (if it that was what it was about) in such a beautiful way be Productive and not Reductive? To sing a beautiful song about two women living a life that mostly is considered shamefull and gritty. It's probably correct what you say about the meaning of the lyrics, but if people think it's about prostitutes it doesn't ruint he beauty of the song.

  • @peterzang its got to be from a filmn tho?

  • @scrumpyjack2007 Yes Robert Altman's McCabe And Mrs Miller. Show up above. One of the most perfect matchings of films and songs ever.

  • @peterzang Sometimes just the visual of the written lyrics can spoil it's magic, all the awesomeness of music happens in our minds.

  • @peterzang Know that for a fact? Or are you making assumptions too? Anyway, at least the guy is using his imagination. I think you're the one reductiving, clever clogs.

    I've loved this album and imagined what the songs could be about for 40 years now, and every track starts a little film in my mind, stranger song being the most convoluted (I have the album on vinyl still in perfect knick) and now you've spoilt it for me - I always thought this was about porn nuns. (kidding).

  • I think perdidoFantasma could easily be right. I'm sure that Eldritch of The Sisters listened to Cohen now and then - just as I know from what I read that he listened to Nick Cave. Secondly, the lines from Cohen's song: 'It won't make me jealous if I hear that they sweetened your night... We weren't lovers like that and besides it would still be alright' could give a clue to what it's about. But then again I never thought about it before. So thanks for the reminder, Spectrum99122

  • Quel génie!

  • All these years I had thought this song was about Nuns! OM fucking God, it's about prostitutes. How can someone be so wrong! Hehe

  • There is no difference between them...

  • HeHe,

  • @spectrum99122Yes i also thought it was about nuns! I also thought hallelujiah was about jesus things too.... no.... sex apparantly!

  • you want the truth you cant handle the truth.

  • it sounds like the velvet underground

    dont think that??

  • Yeah, I get it. I think John Cale would've had fun this tune.

  • Oh yeah, and this album, "Songs of Leonard Cohen" came out the same year as "Velvet Underground and Nico". (Thanks to my buddy VLU for pointing that out!)

  • great. <3

  • I don't watched the movie, But sisters of mercy always did great songs

    And this is one