THE HINDU Editorial Vocabulary- November 12, 2016- Topic 2
“I was born like this, I had no choice.
I was born with the gift of a golden voice,” wrote Leonard Cohen in “Tower of
Song”, suggesting he was sentenced to a life of imprisonment in music. It was a
life in which he fused pain and passion, blended the sacred with the profane.
Among the greatest of the singer-songwriters to emerge from the sixties, Cohen
spoke of extreme passions in liturgical phrases and with biblical references.
The Canadian troubadour, who found inspiration in Greece and fame in the U.S., was
a successful novelist and a poet before turning to lyrics “to slash your wrists
by”, rendered almost conversationally in a brooding and arrestingly sensual
bass. Unlike other musicians, he didn’t fade away as he grew older, or when “he
ached in the places where he used to play”. His last two albums were suffused
with witty, self-deprecatory humour and intimations of his own mortality. Cohen
also remained a spiritual seeker in his verses all his life, his songs often
deviating from the narrative to ask questions about the divine, as he wandered
from Zen Buddhism to Advaita Vedanta while staying Jewish by faith.
Along with Bob Dylan, who called him
“No.1 to his Zero”, Cohen blurred the line between poetry and lyric in the
sixties and seventies. They spoke the language of the time using words of
rebellion and spirituality. The words of “Suzanne” and “Closing Time” dive into
religion and morality, cutting just as deep without the music. “Bird on the
Wire” was where he hit peak, the simplicity of the rhyme serving to ram home
the complexity of the emotion. He retained his edge even in his last album,
speaking with the same voice and shifting only in theme to death and
leave-taking. Cohen used chords sparsely, not allowing the music to drown the
words. However, his music was no lesser a feat. The rises and falls of
“Hallelujah” draw listeners to emotions of accomplishment and dejection in the
gap of a few notes; the soft sensuality of “Dance Me to the End of Love” is
rendered with a tinge of sadness that befitted the link in his mind between the
song and the Holocaust. “So Long Marianne”, ode to his muse and lover, is an
overture that steps beyond the words and the music into a higher emotional
realm. Cohen’s death is a loss to all who look for reason in the rhyme and
rhythm. Always a perfectionist, he often described his masterpieces as
“incomplete”. Cohen may be no more but he will, for many years from now, be speaking to
us softly from his window in the tower of song.
Vocabulary
Sacred: connected with god (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so
deserving veneration.
Example: Sacred rites
Synonyms: holy, hallowed, blessed, consecrated, sanctified, venerated, revered, blest
Profane: relating or devoted to that which is not sacred or biblical; secular rather
than religious.
Example: A talk that tackled topics both sacred and profane
Synonyms: secular, lay, nonreligious, temporal, laic
Liturgical: of or relating to liturgy or public worship.
Example: Pope pius xii in particular contributed heavily to renewal of the church's
liturgical and sacramental life.
Troubadour: a french medieval lyric poet composing and singing in provençal in the 11th
to 13th centuries, especially on the theme of courtly love.
Example: The term buskers originates from an old french word for troubadours -
minstrels, love singers or poets.
Synonyms: minstrel, singer, balladeer, poet, bard, jongleur
Wandered: walk or move in a leisurely, casual, or aimless way.
Example: He wandered aimlessly through the narrow streets
Synonyms: stroll, amble, saunter, walk, dawdle, potter, ramble, meander
Sparsely: thinly dispersed or scattered.
Example: Areas of sparse population
Dejection: a sad and depressed state; low spirits.
Example: He was slumped in deep dejection
Holocaust: destruction or slaughter on a mass scale, especially caused by fire or
nuclear war.
Example: A nuclear holocaust
Synonyms: cataclysm, disaster, catastrophe, destruction, devastation
Tinge: a tendency toward or trace of some color.
Example: There was a faint pink tinge to the sky
Synonyms: tint, color, shade, tone, hue