Tower of Song (Cover of the song by Leonard Cohen)

Mike Opitz: lead vocal, guitar, digitally assisted production and final mix
Caitlin Brutger: keyboard, harmony vocals, production and mixing
Brian Heilman: guitar, harmony vocals, production, mixing and final mastering
Tom Daddesio: bass

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The strange events of last fall’ s election season mixed with the falling leaves and seemed to conjure up nostalgic feelings in me.  In July of 2016, The Karma Refugees re-recorded one of my first reggae songs, “Karma Refugee.”  Thinking about that song and writing about it caused me to remember how I had been introduced to the concept of “karma.”  When I was in college, I heard Gary Snyder read his poetry and loved the metaphoric connections between Native American and Zen world views.  Consequently, I read Alan Watts because of his connection to the “beat generation.”  He had provided my first glimpse into Buddhist thought in “Beat Zen Square Zen,” and I had found it compelling.  Last fall while writing about “Karma Refugee,” I discovered a wealth of Alan Watts’ material on YouTube.  I spent hours listening to these lectures and heard his famous voice for the first time.  I had been busy escaping during the inflammatory and disheartening election campaign by listening to Alan Watts lectures while mixing the tracks of “Karma Refugee” for the website.  I started by listening to Watts’s lectures on “karma,” and then branched out to many other topics.    I was listening to a clever animated overview of Watts’ work last November when I learned of Leonard Cohen’s death.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YgEhvZDZVg

 

The news of Cohen’s death sent me on a journey into the depth of his work.  I had been a fan of Leonard Cohen since I started playing guitar as a teenager. Songs like “Suzanne,” or “Bird on the Wire” were among the first songs I learned.  I remember the moody tone Cohen’s “The Stranger Song” set for Robert Altman’s film, McCabe and Mrs. Miller.  I admired the poetry of songs like “Famous Blue Raincoat,” and “Joan of Arc.”  All the phases of Cohen’s career also illustrate the integration of women’s voices into his work.  I knew many versions of “Halleluiah” as the song became integrated into movie soundtracks and my daughter told me that it was a Cohen song.  Of course!  But I had lost track of Cohen’s work by the end of the 1980s.  I did not know, for example, that he had spent seven years as a Zen monk.  I learned this from Mikal Gilmore’s article in Rolling Stone –one of the many thoughtful eulogies that came out after Cohen’s death.

Leonard Cohen: Life and Legacy of the Poet of Brokenness

My nostalgia peaked in the late fall along with my need to escape.  I dove into the music and career of Leonard Cohen.  I found the expected darkness, but I also found disciplined and sharp lines of poetry.  For example, measured eight line stanzas make up the dialog between Joan of Arc and Fire.

Leonard Cohen, “Joan of Arc.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bqK-Be-w20

“Famous Blue Raincoat” is a wonderful song written in the form of a letter featuring spare, ironic imagery about a complex of relationships.

Leonard Cohen, “Famous Blue Raincoat.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkSERbdl39Q

I discovered deep humor runs through Cohen’s work.  For example, the song “Closing Time” links closing time in a Country Western bar with the end of the world.

Leonard Cohen, “Closing Time.”

The singer clues us in with these lines: “We’re drinkin’ and we’re dancin’ but nothin’s really happenin’/ And the place is dead as heaven on a Saturday night.”

I’ve found occasion to quote that line a few times!

As I was studying Cohen’s work, I wanted to record one of his songs.  There are so many choices and I’m still drawn to many of his songs.  But I identified with the geriatric humor of “Tower of Song;” I’m only a few years younger than Leonard Cohen; it made me laugh the first time I heard it and I identified more deeply after learning to sing it,  I appreciate how the ironic lines can be applied to me.  It made me nostalgic for myself: “My friends are gone and my hair is grey/ I ache in the places where I used to play.”  I wanted to say. “My hair is gone and my friends are grey,” but the picture certainly looks a lot like me.