Donald Trump’s The Wall

Run Like Hell

“I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.”

Posted on November 16, 2016

Hallelujah: How An Ignored Leonard Cohen Song Became A Modern Legend

By Adrian York/The Conversation

The final few bars of Leonard Cohen’s life song have been played out. He was the elder statesman of a trio of iconic male North American singer-songwriters that included Bob Dylan and Tom Waits. This group of musical malcontents laid bare the American male psyche in a way that hadn’t been heard before. Their singing was the flip side to the American Dream, a jarring contrast to the seductively beautiful voices of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, each using an idiosyncratic vocal tone to channel the anger, joy and pain of their songs.
Cohen’s voice seemed to sink into the depths as he got older, and by the time he recorded “Hallelujah: in 1984 at the age of 50 it had morphed into a mournful “basso profundo.” Astonishingly, despite containing a song that has now inspired more than 300 versions, Cohen’s American label declined to release the album Various Positions. This may account for the way the song has gradually seeped into the public consciousness. It was other artists’ takes on Cohen’s song, rather than the original, that built a wave of interest in it and made “Hallelujah” into the modern hymn it is today.

Posted on November 15, 2016