Stories of the Street

„I supposed that he told you everything that I keep locked away in my head.“ – Ein surrealer Spaziergang mit Leonard Cohen.

Ich bin keine Shopping Queen. Zwar mag ich es, hübsche neue Sachen zu besitzen, aber die Jagd nach ihnen bereitet mir definitiv kein Vergnügen. Somit gehört auch Window Shopping nicht zu meinen bevorzugten Tätigkeiten.

In New York gibt es aber unzählige Auslagen, die etwas Verträumtes, oft sogar etwas Alptraumhaftes ausstrahlen. Die mich – vollkommen unabhängig von ihrem Inhalt – mit ihrer absurden Ästhetik berühren, mich zum Träumen anregen.

Von diesen Auslagen erzählt dieser Blogbeitrag. Und wer wäre besser geeignet, die Begleitmusik und vor allem die Begleitworte für diese Bilder zu liefern, als der große Meister der „Stories of the Street“, der ewige Poet der  Großstadtmelancholie: Leonard Cohen.

Kommt mit auf diesen Spaziergang durch New Yorks Straßen, einen Spaziergang voller Geschichten, Bilder und Schicksale…

 

And you 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 all right

 (Sisters of Mercy)

There are children in the morning

They are leaning out for love

And they will lean that way forever

(Suzanne)

 

And the last time that I saw her she was living with some boy

who gives her soul an empty room and gives her body joy.

(Death Of A Ladies Man)

 

I touched you once too often

Now I don´t know who I am

My fingerprints were missing

When I wiped away the jam

…

Yeah I thought I´d leave this morning

So I emptied out your drawers

A hundred thousand fingerprints

They floated to the floor

You know you hardly stopped to pick them up

You don´t care what you lose

Ah you don´t even seem to know

Whose fingerprints are whose

(Fingerprints)

 

Do not dress in those rags for me,

I know you are not poor;

(Avalanche)

 

And now the wheels of heaven stop

…

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions

Won´t be nothing

Nothing you can measure anymore

The blizzard, the blizzard of the world

Has crossed the threshold

And it has overturned

the order oft he soul

(The Future)

 

Shouldering your loneliness

like a gun that you will not learn to aim,

you stumble into this movie house,

then you climb, you climb into the frame.

Yes, and here, right here

between the moonlight and the lane,

between the tunnel and the train,

between the victim and his stain,

once again, once again,

love calls you by your name.

(Love Calls You By Your Name)

 

I don´t like your fashion business mister

And I don´t like these drugs that keep you thin

I don´t like what happened to my sister

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

(First we take Manhattan)

 

There is a war between the rich and poor,

a war between the man and the woman.

There is a war between the ones who say there is a war

and the ones who say there isn´t.

Why don´t you come on back to the war, that´s right, get in it,

why don´t you come on back to the war, it´s just beginning.

(There Is A War)

 

Why do you stand by the window

Abandoned to beauty and pride

The thorn oft he night in your bosom

The spear oft he age in your side

(The Window)

 

I came upon a butcher,

he was salughtering a lamb,

I accused him there

with his tortured lamb.

He said, „Listen to me, child,

I am what I am

and you, you are my only son.“

Well, I found a silver needle,

I put in into my arm.

It did some good,

did some harm.

But the nights were cold

and it almost kept me warm,

how come the night is long?

(The Butcher)

 

Everbody knows that the dice are loaded

Everbody rolls with their fingers crossed

Everbody knows that the war ist over

Everbody knows the good guys lost

Everbody knows the fight was fixed

The poor stay poor, the rich get rich

…

Everybody talking to their pockets

Everybody wants a box of chocolates

And a long stem rose

Everybody knows

(Everybody Knows)

 

I suppose that he told you everything

that I keep locked away in my head

(Master Song)

 

 

© Songtexts: Leonard Cohen