Added: 5 years ago
From: imatthws
Views: 275,672
Sort by time | Sort by thread (beta)

Link to this comment:

Share to:
see all

All Comments (220)

Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!
  • Why does Leonard Cohen look like Dustin Hoffman?

  • @AdamDonnie errr they do a bit, good point - just another gorgeous Jewish man :)

  • I think felix is baked at the beginning.

  • Actually this was shown 27/1/68 - "Sounds of the 60s" got the date wrong. It survives courtesy of a Bob Pratt compilation.

  • And I'm one hell of a fingerpicker, but i don't understand what technique he employs here. Anyone have any name for it? Granted it may be obvious, but I lean towards country and folk stylings. This sounds Spanish.

  • Hi

    He's a very underestimated fingerpicker . I love the way he turns his patterns around. There is so much detail

    in his right hand as he changes with the bass end trebble strings. It looks simple but , it's not. In combination with his psychedelic voice and lyrics that makes him a god.

  • and if I ever wrote a song that made me cry I would certainly know I'd found the atom of poetry.

  • he doesn't have a fantastic voice but I've never gone for that.  Dylan, Townes, Cohen, are my messiahs.

  • @thedylanschrader Funny, he's widely regarded as not having a great voice, but when I hear others covering his tunes, I find them lacking. Cohen's voice has a weightiness (especially in his later years) that supports and really delivers his lyrics. He has a voice I trust.

  • @zibimark what do you live for?

  • the Canadian Bob Dylan.

  • brilliant!!!

  • She is gorgious.

  • Canadian class

  • Está llorando!!!!... Si algo le faltaba a Leonard era eso... qué conmoción!!!

    Casi que nos contagia, Dios!!!

  • I'm not gay, he's probably not gay, but I could fall in love with him.

  • amazing i love his music he is a genius !!!!!

  • it's superb !

  • This song means so much to me that it's beauty like this that justifies life and living for love.

  • Quite possibly the most brilliant lyrics ever written. God this song is perfect. "And while he talks his dreams to sleep

    you notice there's a highway

    that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder"

  • damned good song.

  • What an incredible pice of art! Hypnotic, thoughtful, tender, moving. I love this song.

  • classic early cohen! the first tv performance? just around the time the first album was released i should suspect.

    thanks muchly for this....

    wordofgord

  • He sounds more baritone than bass at this age.

  • Why can't I make my fingers do that!?!?

  • this song is playing on a classic guitar.

  • well, now there are two of us.

    very frustrating, yes.

  • one of my favorite songs. I saw Cohen in Paris 3 weeks ago :)

    there is a canadian singer called Graeme Allright. he sings Leonard's songs in french [not comparable but i mention him because i knew him before when i was 8 :)]

    if u like this song, try :Ballad of the Absent Mare

    and thank me :)

  • this always makes me cry

  • back when music still existed

  • apisteytos moysikos!

  • A genius performing one of his masterpieces. Such a truthful poem, such a wondeful song...Thank you L. Cohen!

  • He is crying.. At the end of the video you see the tear run down his face.

    I love his music. He is such an incredible personality.

  • @madbara yesss wow

  • julie felix = babe

  • it's song of my life.

    The most beautiful thing I've ever heard.

  • the partisan :P...

    is the most beautiful thing i've ever heard.

    but this song is simply incredible.

  • oh my god. thx very much ;d

    amazing, just amazing :)

  • Registo fantástico.

  • Such a beautiful song

  • Excellant song & vid...thanks. 5/5

  • incredible song! just an amazing songwriter, i dont think there will ever be another artist capable of writing such profound lyrics!!

  • mcd, I find Jim Morrison's lyrics more profound , just to name one, though his rnroll star attitude might make us forget to listen to the words...but true that Leonard Cohen is such a good storyteller with perfect pronounciation any foreigner would like to learn english with him as a teacher

  • What a wonderful introduction she gave, who is she?

  • Julie Felix...probably before your time

  • Thanks - I'm assuming she is a musician as I see a guitar strap on her. Is she known for anything else?

  • love it! love him! love them! sooooo romantic ....... sulla scia degli a'm'arcord mai vissuti ....... parte dell'eterno 'longing' collettivo

  • His brilliance reaches out and makes you feel insignificant and small. I love you, Leonard!

  • it is that first album of his that's so outstanding in its unity of musical and poetical expressiveness that all those wise comments go up like smoke being blown away.

    would you just open your heart and listen.

  • so good this is my fav song

  • Emotion is not the main product of music but a byproduct produced by an arrangements of sound through space and time, actually depending on ones school Classicist , modernist, post modernist, structuralist etc. their does exist a platonic or purely abstract idealized form by which to judge a song as good or bad. To judge a song by the emotion it produces is faulty but to judge it on how well the song produces or mimics the "physicality" of emotion is good.

  • And who gets to determine what the "main product" of music is, and whose idealized form are you talking about? It's different in conception for each person, even within the same school (and how many listeners would even know the difference b/t modernist and post-modernist?). It is music... and it just is. It has no inherent meaning. Deconstruct it all you want, but like most things it's the individual that brings the "beauty" or the "ugliness" to it, no the other way around.

  • yeah slopydrunk cut the pretentious talk.

  • Shut up Theodore Adorno....or whoever you are...someone similar....

  • Let us put it this way. Leonard was a reader and Dylan had a photographic memory for phonograph records - played over and over again...

  • I hear many people complaining about Leonards composing,guitar-playing and singing talent.Matter of fact,I hear that even from his loyal fans.

    Weird.

    Id put about a hundred of you smart girls and boys in one room,give you everything you need(paper,instruments,food,wi­ne,drugs...) and let you out after a year to see what you have made.

    I bet you would not come out with an album as nearly as great as the Cohen´s "weakest" album.

  • Good comment BrianGodard! You've obviously got it. I have no problems playing the guitar like he does, no problem singing the song in tune either, but when it comes to composing the thing, I just bow my head... It is so... Well he is a true artist, and I'm just a copycat, and copycats don't count.

  • ...and he taught Himself to play guitar!

  • This might be cohen's best song. What I find really amazing about it is his ability to do that repetitive picking pattern and not fuck it up. Do you have any idea how difficult that is? try and play this song the way he does, it's hard. When i heard the album version of it, i swore it couldn't be him playing but i was just proven wrong.

  • i'm probably just speaking from a folksinger's perspective. I'm not saying he's one of the great guitar players ever, i'm just saying it's exceedingly difficult to pick something the same over and over and not screw it up, while singing. i didn't think cohen had it in him.

  • Well, to his modest credit, Leonard always said that he only had one guitar trick, and he demonstrated it by playing "Avalanche", (which you can also find on here). Same repetetive-triplets "trick" he's using here. It's wonderful, as his guitar playing always is.

  • he was crying at the end.

  • Beautyful!

  • In my opinion this demonstrates why people can never manage good Cohen covers: It's in the man's voice.

    If you look objectively at this song the melody is incredibly simple and repetitive. The lyrics are interesting, as always, but I'm not sure they could put the song over on their own.

    It's the way he SAYS them.

  • Nobody makes a good Leonard Cohen cover...what are you talking about??????

    It's all down to the words, he's just as she says a poet.

  • "Nobody makes a good Leonard Cohen cover...what are you talking about??????"

    I thought it was pretty straight forward. Most Cohen covers are atrocious. Jeff Buckley's cover of "Hallelujah" leaps to mind immediately.

  • To give Buckley a fair chance I just relistened to the version.

    Yep, outside of the melodic and lyrical strength alredy hardwired into the piece, it's insipid uninspire pap. I'm not sure where people got the idea that whispering and simplistic guitar strumming equals talent.

  • OK, your entitled to your own opinion. Thanks for coming with such an unoffensive response.

  • A simple and repetitive melody can be very beautiful (as it is here). That it is simple or repetitive is in itself no objection.

    No one can look at any song "objectively" and on that decide if it is good or not. A good song will evoke an emotional response--which is subjective to each listener. I think it's amusing when someone posts like they are the keeper of the platonic form of "music". I like some covers better than his originals, some I don't.

  • The "and suddenly you feel a little older" is in the original, but as with all Cohen songs multiple versions are common.

  • "he did not wrote "songs", he wrote beutiful poems with music. You dont find lyrics like these in today´s music."

    I 100% agree,

    ysf

  • Bill Callahan, NIck Cave, Joanna Newsom are all current and just a credible. I think Cohen is the best; in fact, he is the musical father of these three.

  • Joanna Newsome? is that a joke?

  • Her lyrics are shit, I agree

  • The woman talking has one very sexy mouth.

  • When you listen to something like this, you have to thing that there's something missing from recording artists today. Man, I wish we had an other Leonard.

  • I think Mark Kozelek is the closest we have right now, but he has a very different style than Cohen. He shares Cohen's melancholy and- to a slightly lesser extent- Cohen's way with words. The only songwriter that can compare to Cohen is Townes Van Zandt, in my opinion.

  • good god it makes me cry

  • he did not wrote "songs", he wrote beutiful poems with music. You dont find lyrics like these in today´s music.

  • "and suddenly you feel a little older". I don't remember that line from the album version

  • I think she's really good. Compared to today's tv hacks? C'mon.

  • yeah!

  • I love you, Julie Felix!

  • Real music. REAL talent. You can't beat it!!

  • Love this little Canuck ! Such a GREAT writer !

    Just amazes me , how poorly his two beautiful novels have sold worldwide ...

    ´Favorite Game ´is a minor classic , and with time will be a major one .

  • Leonard Cohen has graced us with some of the finest poetry. Many of his songs were recorded by"big name" performers. Listen to some of his other performances here, you may find many truths in the pictures he draws in your mind with his words.

  • through a black period of my life this haunting sound helped me enjoy my agony

  • I never thought I'd see a visual that transcended the recorded version of this song. . . thank you.

  • That single tear, man.

  • Yes.

  • lovely

  • amazing.

  • Lip-synced. Why bother posting? Gimmee live stuff.

  • You must be kidding. This is absolutely live, 100%.

  • Leonard Cohen is a great artist. He is hundred times better than a Bob Geldoff.

  • When I was younger I heard the Judy Collins "In My Life"

    with "Tom Thumb's Blues" by Dylan and the two tracks by Cohen.

    I didn't know what to make of them. All the songs were good

    but the Cohen songs were so diferent. I bought the album

    with him fixing his tie in the mirror and all the songs were good

    but they were sad and flat. Much later I would hear "Stranger" or "Joan Of Arc"

    and I would say...what the hell was that? It was like hearing a monologue by

    Joe Frank...hard to describe.

  • L.Cohen's poem "Not A Jew": Anyone who says I'm not a Jew is not a Jew I'm very sorry but this is final so says:Eliezar, son of Nissan,priest of Israel; a.k.a Nightingale of the Sinai,Yom Kippur 1973; a.k.a Jikan the Unconvincing,zen monk; a.k.a Leonard Cohen,Certified Food Worker,San Bernadino County, CA; a.k.a The Founder,Order of the Unified Heart; a.k.a The Best Dressed Man in Montreal(local newspaper)
  • Ugh, and he's proud of that? Why? Is he connected to the banking or porn industry?

  • Sorry, too, if I did misunderstand, kluksch. None of us would like to admit it, but we're all influenced by prose and Leonard Cohen is the best at it. Hope it all goes well for you Kluksch

  • i´m sorry.maybe you did misunderstood.this song is a journey simillar to mine.I wept as I listened.

  • uff, strong stuff

  • Great song, great artist, great performance. If you notice, he almost never blinks during the nearly 5-minute long song. Not to rule out the emotion, but that helps explain the tear at the end.

  • if there is a leonard cohen autobiography movie made, dustin hoffman has got to play him!!!

  • me gusta mucho también la versión que hace Nacho Vegas de este tema, lástima que no haya un video de eso, o al menos eso creo.

  • Ridiculous...discussion about Cohen's heritage given the remarkable library of his work. He was a miraculous poet and a human being first. I don't imagine God would care if he was buddhist, christian, or bahai. He spoke the heart of humanity; not every Jew can do that.

  • Kluksch, if you were sincere about the importance of Cohen being a 'human being first' you couldn't have followed it up with that covert put down of his religion. Nature, nurture and ethnicity play a role in who people ultimately become. Cohen is an ordained Buddhist monk in but says he's happy with Judaism. He's open to learning which is why you can admire his work. He recognizes his roots, why can't you? I doubt that he would have cared for you as a fan.

  • i find it hilarious when people aren't able to appreciate something because their hearing and recognition of peoples voices is so bad that they associate it with something completely different. it doesn't sound like eric cartman, would he even express an emotion like this? thats retarded.

  • so quick to attack? actually this is a reply to someone elses comment if you view all comments maybe youll "appreciate" it

  • haha sorry

  • thanks

  • Funny! The beautiful smiling girl introduced the brooding Leonard Cohen - cracking song brilliant composer.

  • WOW. Just totally beautiful, and he puts so much into the singing you forget,(and the camera angles ignore until near the end) that he is still playing that sad haunting melody and keeping perfect time. It took the second watching to see the tear, but I believe it!

  • wow that one tear man one tear...

  • this is just amazing

  • people say you have to be a women to like leonard cohens music?!? Why??

  • a beautiful song he is one of the greatest writers of all time and just listing to him will convince anyone of that

  • a beautiful song this man is one of the poetic wonders of our times. anyone who says that you have to be a women to like his music is very wrong i'm a guy and he is one of my favorite writers and singers

  • beautiful

  • Yeah, you can see it really clearly on the DVD.

  • One of the most important musicians and poets in the history

  • fingerless, very perceptive observation. thank you for pointing it out.

  • i believe so.

  • Man, there isn't a clip I can watch without reading hateful comments by pissed off people. What a fucking drag.

  • i agree with you man, its so tiring that people waste their time posting stupid things on videos that actualy mean something to other people. This isnt some random video of some emo kids acting weird, this is goddman beautiful music man, so tiring that people have to be stupid with technological advancements.

  • I didn't start it sirmarkthomas - I responded in kind. If I didn't love LC, I wouldn't be watching. I'm alack in the turning the other cheek department.

  • I'm in NW London knumberd (another mistake?) if you're up for that! I know more about Dylan, Cohen, Guthrie and Lead belly etc than you ever will - don't mean to be bellicose but you started it by calling me a twat, cunt-face! How's the bed-sit big-time songwriter?

  • grman----obviously your not a musician. thats just how we operate, music sets the mood

  • You place your self upon the same plane as a genius as Leonard Cohen? - 'That's how we operate!' Get a fucking grip - you couldn't begin to conceive of or explain how he operates any more than I could.

  • thats how musicians operate in general , we hear the music first you fuckin twat,Im not placing myself on the same level dont take shit out of context.

  • You're the twat - I'm published, are you? Tell us about one of your songs that I'll have heard of - come on big man, you're the songwriter. As a writer, possibly your grammar, punctuation and spelling might be areas you'd care to look at. I love Cohen but if you want a fight, carry on.

  • Better still, come and call me a twat Affronti affrontare, tune-smith.

  • Ironically I am a musician....I play guitar, violin, and I am a drummer....I just find that cohen is a lyricist first....there is nothing wrong with that.

  • amen to that!

  • lol now that you mention it i do see a lil bruce willis in em

  • terry wogan????

  • does he look like bruce willis with hair to anyone else?

  • im a guitar payer, trust me that was live and it was amazing

  • apparently he was grief struck at the loss of his parents at an early age and was very sad for a very, very long time..

  • It really isn't playback. :) You can distinctively hear the difference with the recorded album version. What a wild idea, that he would be miming... Why would he?

  • Absolutely incredible...

  • Why would he mime? Besides, he's singing in a different key, like a whole step higher, or so. And slower.

  • Or I could be wrong.

  • He's miming. The song isn't live. There is a live version on youtube but this isn't it. It's note for note identical to the recorded song.

  • The first time i heard this song was when i saw this very video on the tele, at the time my mind was bent sidewise with a fever, i found it mezmorizing, just seing that face fill the screen with the pulsating arpeggios and the haunting lyrics. i didnt want it to end, it was perfect.

  • Did anybody else notice the tear streaming down his left cheek at the end of the song?

  • one of my alltime favorite Cohen songs :"reaching for the sky just to surrender"

  • I was about 13 when I heard this in the UK on "sounds of the 60's", it made my spine tingle.

    I went out and bought "songs of leonard Cohen". Which made my spine tingle.

    Thanks for this posting - brings back great memories.

  • speaks to my soul...thx for the post

  • pleas help me for download it

  • i want to download this video

  • He's a buddhist now, no longer jewish.

  • You are wrong. He may be a Buddhist, but he is still Jewish, in his heart and in his identity. :-)

  • What an EXCELLENT clip! Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! Love Leonard Cohen, loved Beautiful Losers way back when. Not a single note of this clip varies from the recorded track--positively AWESOME! Thanks yet again!

  • what's wrong with her mouth?

  • crazy good

  • does anybody have tabs for this or sheet music or anything?!

    the tabs online are almost completly wrong

  • it's rather easy, it's all about the right hand.

    goes in a D -C- - A - E - FM" - with the little finger tapping on the minor tones

  • Well that was just awesome. Thanks for the post imatthws. Does anyone know why Cohen is not as big in the UK as he's in other European countries like Spain, France, Portugal...?

  • I'd never seen this but have always loved this song, from his early album "Songs of Leonard Cohen." This song and many others from the album were used in Robert Altman's "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" soundtrack.

  • I reckon Julie sold out and became Cher...

    And in response to the guy above ` he`s prety jewish` sorry sorry comment you made. wide open your eyes should be.

  • Well, jews have done a lot of bad things, so maybe you should be open minded...

  • so have christians fuckface

  • did you consider that he might have being sarcastic?