@[Diderik:33655] "Your a holiday!" Was a popular term used in the 50s/60s to compliment someone on their all around. For example, not only are they beautiful, but they are fun and kind too ... just an all around "holiday".
I think your first comment is closer to being accurate. The singer/song writers state "Millions of eyes can see, yet why am i so blind!? When the someone else is me, its unkind its unkind". I believe hes referring to the girl toying with him and using him. He wants something deeper with her, thats why he allows himself to be as a puppet (even though for her fun and games) as long as it makes her happy. But he knows deep down that she doesnt really want to be serious with him and thats what makes him.
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were talking so brave and so sweet
giving me head on the unmade bed
while the limousines wait in the street
Those were the reasons and that was New York
we were running for the money and the flesh
And that was called love for the workers in song
probably still is for those of them left
Ah but you got away, didn't you babe
you just turned your back on the crowd
you got away, I never once heard you say
I need you, I don't need you
I need you, I don't need you
and all of that jiving around
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend
You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty
you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind,
we are ugly but we have the music"
And you got away, didn't you babe,
you just turned your back on the crowd
you got away, I never once heard you say,
I need you, I don't need you
I need you, I don't need you
and all of that jiving around
I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best
I can't keep track of each fallen robin
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
that's all, I don't even think of you that often
you were talking so brave and so sweet
giving me head on the unmade bed
while the limousines wait in the street
Those were the reasons and that was New York
we were running for the money and the flesh
And that was called love for the workers in song
probably still is for those of them left
Ah but you got away, didn't you babe
you just turned your back on the crowd
you got away, I never once heard you say
I need you, I don't need you
I need you, I don't need you
and all of that jiving around
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend
You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty
you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind,
we are ugly but we have the music"
And you got away, didn't you babe,
you just turned your back on the crowd
you got away, I never once heard you say,
I need you, I don't need you
I need you, I don't need you
and all of that jiving around
I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best
I can't keep track of each fallen robin
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
that's all, I don't even think of you that often
Lyrics submitted by Mopnugget
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Leonard's publicist unbeknownst to Leonard revealed that this song was bout his secret affair with Janis Joplin. While it did great for the record publicity, it really angered Cohen that someone he trusted had leaked the info. Although I'm sure the sogn would ahve been just as affecting without the history of the story I still can't ever listen to this song without picturing the heady(sex crazed) leonard coupling with the physical(sex crazed) joplin. And no, it's anot a pretty image.
Leonard actually told it was about Joplin often in concert, there are may videos of that.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us who are oppressed by the figures of beauty you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind, we are ugly but we have the music"
Clenched fists and fixing yourself. Heroin?
@Ricco How could I have never noticed that? Good catch!
@Ricco How could I have never noticed that? Good catch!
@Ricco could be. Could also be clenching a fist in anger, and fixing yourself ie tidying up after sex. This is the beauty of Cohen’s writing.
Just to add an observation of a lyric towards the end of the song: "I'll never confess, that I loved you the best. I can't keep track of each fallen robin. I remember you well in the Chelsea hotel, that's all i don't even think of you that often"- to some, this may seem to be a sarcastic line, as if to say to himself "I want to seem like I don't care, but underneath I really do care about the death of this lover..but I don't want to admit it to myself or else I might feel really sad about it". Well, yeah, there's a bit about that emotion in this line. But there's another meaning here. I think Leonard is trying to be honest. Perhaps to say he really cared after the fact, this could be hypocritical and a lie, because in reality, maybe he really didn't care about her and brushed her aside like so many of the other fallen robins he dated. It may seem mean, but perhaps that is the truth, that he really didn't care and to lie and say that he did, would dishonor her life and death. But again, he may have had the other emotion as well at the same time. Double meanings like this in Cohen's lyrics, I think are intentional and one of the things that make him such a fascinating, meaningful and credible writer. L. Cohen, you are my mentor, my guru and my musical/lyrical soulmate. The gift of your wisdom is the most invaluable gift I've ever been given (while intentional or not)
I think that's an astute observation, and that particular verse is always the part of the song that makes me love LC most.
One note on the falling robin:
From the Christian Bible, Matthew 10:29 "What is the price of two sparrows--one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it."
So Leonard isn't God. He can't keep everyone in mind all the time. He doesn't presume a closeness of a long relationship, or the entitlement of a deep and lasting grief. This was the experience, it mattered as much as it mattered, no more, no less.
(I have a shorthand for interpreting Leonard Cohen songs: Presume it's about sex, death, faith/religion, and the experience of being an imperfect human. I have yet to find one of his very popular songs that doesn't have at least a touch of all four.)
Hi. Thanks for your insight with the Matthew 10:29 reference. It means a lot to me to find such references. Thanks again. You kinda helped me to put together the pieces of this song. <br /> Regards from India.
PS. Another song about Janis Joplin is "Bird Song" by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter. Joplin was the girlfriend of Ron "Pigpen" McKernan of the Grateful Dead ,for a while. He died of alcoholism.
i think that rufus wainwright does the best cover!
"I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best. I can't keep track of each fallen robin"
I'm pretty sure he is referring to fact that Janis had broken the hearts of many men and that he can't say that out of all those men, he loved her the most.
Chelsea Hotel is a hotel in New York City often frequented by musicians, artist and writers (also the place where Nancy Spungen was allegedly murdered by Sid Vicious). The lyrics are about Leonard's sexual encounter with Janis Joplin at the hotel.
I don't think its about Janis. Apparently he had a love affair with Janis and Nico from the Velvet Underground, and in a poem from the book of longing titled "Something from the early seventies," Cohen says "the Black Photograph has ever meant a fig to me, except of course, for Nico. She could read them. She knew what I was doing. She knew what I was. And I long for her still [...] My work among other things is a monument to Nico's eyes. That there was such a pair in my own time, and that I met them, forehead to forehead; that the Black Photograph sang to other irises, and yes, corneas, retinas and optic nerves, all the way down the foul leather bag to Nico's restless hear, another human heart; that this actually happened constitutes the sole assault on my loneliness that the eternal has ever made, and it was her. <br /> <br /> Therefor I was in New York at a curtain time, in a certain place; actually it was The Chelsea Hotel."
The song is only little bit about a moment between two conventionally unattractive people, communing as both homely and immensely talented. Sure, the affair was super short, but they "had the music" a lot better than most anyone else alive at the time. More importantly Janis "got away" because she died. The song is just as much about all the musicians who didn't surviving the lifestyle, the drugs, the decade...
"we were running for the money and the flesh And that was called love for the workers in song probably still is for those of them left"
"clenched fist" evocative of shaking it in anger- oppressed by beautiful people. "fixed yourself" probably a pun. "each fallen robin" dead singers.
I've always wondered... what happened to Chelsea Hotel No. 1?
Cohen wrote this song on an airplane with his friend, and it was called "Chelsea Hotel." Years later, Cohen came across these lyrics and wanted to record them, but was afraid that it technically would be copyright infringement, so he called it "Chelsea Hotel No. 2."