Saturday, December 25, 2004

Is this a happy song or a sad song?

Ok, I have always thought of this song (like most other Cohen songs) as an intensely, poignantly saaaad love song. A friend recently told me about how she thinks this is one of the most romantic (read: HA-PPY!) songs she’s ever heard! This got me thinking…and so I leave it to you guys to tell me what your interpretations of this song are. Ps: Even if you don’t have anything to say…just LISTEN to this song (if you haven’t yet…) it is beautiful.

Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love,
we're both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now,
though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand
or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

7 Comments:

Blogger Jabberwock said...

Are you asking for a response to the heard song or just to the words? It's a relevant question because unlike most other major singer-songwriters, Cohen is a poet first and a singer/musician a distant second -so his lyrics can be read and appreciated on paper independently of the performed version. As such, if you only read the words, it's easy to think of it as a "happy" song. But you need to hear the man singing it, and the accompanying music, to see the poignance.
Anyway, I find myself moving out of this classifying of such things as inherently happy or sad. Depends a lot on my mood at the time.

24 December, 2004 16:09  
Blogger Straight Curves said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

03 January, 2005 01:38  
Blogger illusions said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

05 January, 2005 17:37  
Blogger Straight Curves said...

i agree...

...on all counts

05 January, 2005 17:49  
Blogger illusions said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

05 January, 2005 18:05  
Blogger illusions said...

If you can dance to the 'end of love', I don't life has a greater sensation to offer. A bit like the Buddhas enlightenment.

I.e: Wow! The lyrics are marvellous!

05 January, 2005 18:06  
Blogger Straight Curves said...

ummm...I agree...even 3 rows down!

08 January, 2005 23:08  

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