A Song For the Eye— At West End Gallery
That’s the only song I wrote in one sitting. The melody I had worked on for some time. I didn’t really know what the song was. I remember that my mother had liked it.
Then I was in Edmonton, which is one of our largest northern cities, and there was a snowstorm and I found myself in a vestibule with two young hitch-hiking women who didn’t have a place to stay. I invited them back to my little hotel room and there was a big double bed and they went to sleep in it immediately. They were exhausted by the storm and cold. And I sat in this stuffed chair inside the window beside the Saskatchewan River. And while they were sleeping I wrote the lyrics. And that never happened to me before. And I think it must be wonderful to be that kind of writer. It must be wonderful.
–Leonard Cohen, on writing the song Sisters of Mercy
There’s a great website, Blank on Blank, with a blog and videos of bits of interviews with notable folks from the last 50 or 60 years that have been rediscovered. They present them in short and entertaining animated videos. I featured one here several years ago with Ray Bradbury.
I came across one of their videos this morning about Leonard Cohen telling the story of how he came to write his song, Sisters of Mercy, in Edmonton in 1966. There are conflicting accounts online of his time there but his telling of the song’s origin in a 1974 interview is entertaining, nonetheless. It begins with his reading of a poem, Two Went to Sleep, that he had composed twenty years before, sometime in the mid-1950s. The animation of the poem pairs well with his telling of the Sisters of Mercy.
Thought I’d share the Blank on Blank video along with his song, Sisters of Mercy. Take a look at the Blank on Blank site, if you get a chance. Sme interesting and diverse thinking there.
Redtree Times 