Continuing the theme of melancholia, Famous Blue Raincoat by Leonard Cohen is one of those songs I sometimes force people to sit silently and listen to, which is both hypocritical because I wouldn't like it much if someone did that to me, and justified because it's that good.
It starts off in the middle of a cold night and Leonard Cohen is living on Clinton Street in the Lower East Side just a few blocks from my actual apartment here in New York and he's singing a letter he's written to the new lover of his ex. The new lover is someone Leonard Cohen obviously knows extremely well, but instead of rage or malevolence he seems to have accepted what's happening with a weary resignation.
My Dad used to play a lot of Leonard Cohen at home when I was growing up but I rediscovered this song in 2016 and then listened to it on repeat after my ex and I broke up in the winter of 2017. It was the perfect song to blast in my headphones with my hood up while walking around in the freezing cold feeling devastated. I say blast but it's quiet contemplative folk music so I just liked when his voice drowned out the sounds on the street.
I like lyrics. I like to learn them and I like to think about what the singer is really saying. There are references to Scientology, "That night you planned to go clear. Did you ever go clear?" and the raincoat in question was apparently a Burberry jacket he wore and loved for years. This song has one of the most powerful lines I've ever heard and it nails me every time I hear it.
"And thanks for the trouble you took from her eyes I thought it was there for good so I never tried."
God damn.
I LIKE YOU!
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