Rocktober Day Seven: Tower of Song

I've been thinking about old age a lot lately and this song sums up a lot of my thoughts and feelings. The words hurt my heart but they also give me strength to look ahead and get a mental grip on what the future has in store for all of us. I think this song talks about our bodies giving up but our emotions and desires hanging in there, and I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

This song also talks about the legacy we leave and I have to admit to a tiny bit of jealousy that Mr Cohen's intellectual legacy is so very vast and mine is zilch [how do I even dare write such a sentence?!]. As a writer (of sorts) I have fostered tiny ambitions of touching people with my words and when I hear songs like this I can only kneel at the feet of a master and not dare raise my eyes.

I think Leonard Cohen is a songwriting genius. He's not the best singer in the world but his words are second to none. I prefer the Martha Wainwright version of this song from the I'm Your Man CD and DVD and from the Came So Far From Beauty concerts. The way she sings it gives the song a different perspective; a young woman singing an old man's song.

I have spent some time grappling with what I can say about this song, but the feelings lay in the pit of my stomach and don't easily form into sensible words. I hope the lyrics give you some idea but if you take a moment to listen to Martha's gorgeous version you may feel a little of what I do when I hear this song.

Tower of Song (Martha Wainwright's version at The Basement, YouTube clip)

My friends are gone and my hair is grey.
I ache in the places where I used to play.
And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on.
I'm just paying my rent every day in the tower of song.

I said to Hank Williams: “How lonely does it get?”
Hank Williams hasn't answered yet,
but I hear him coughing all night long,
a hundred floors above me in the tower of song.

I was born like this, I had no choice.
I was born with the gift of a golden voice,
and twenty-seven angels from the great beyond,
they tied me to this table right here in the tower of song.

So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll
- I'm very sorry, baby, doesn't look like me at all.
I'm standing by the window where the light is strong.
They don't let a woman kill you not in the tower of song.

Now you can say that I've grown bitter but of this you may be sure:
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor,
and there's a mighty judgement coming, but I may be wrong.
You see, you hear these funny voices in the tower of song.

I see you standing on the other side.
I don't know how the river got so wide.
I loved you, I loved you way back when -
And all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed,
but I feel so close to everything that we lost-
We'll never, we’ll never have to lose it again.

So I bid you farewell, I don't know when I'll be back.
They’re moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track.
But you'll be hearing from me, baby, long after I'm gone.
I'll be speaking to you sweetly from my window in the tower of song.

My friends are gone and my hair is grey.
I ache in the places where I used to play.
And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on.
I'm just paying my rent every day in the tower of song.