Sisters of Mercy – Leonard Cohen – Songs of Leonard Cohen, 1967. [3:32]
I first heard this song around 1991 while watching McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Robert Altman’s 1971 western, which featured a few Leonard Cohen tunes. I was not familiar with Cohen’s music and had only heard his name once before (as the punch line of a great joke from the British comedy The Young Ones. Stoner hippie Neil ponders aloud, “Nobody ever listens to me. I might as well be a Leonard Cohen record.”). The Altman movie takes place in a snowy old west town, and I sometimes picture Warren Beatty staggering through the drifts looking for a good place to die when I hear this song.
It was years later that I bought Songs of Leonard Cohen, the Canadian’s remarkable 1967 debut. You can’t recreate the experience of hearing an astounding record for the first time, but I was completely awed by that album. I loved the melodies and spare arrangements, I dug Leo’s nerdy voice, and I thought the lyrics were just dynamite: they had depth, class, humor, magic. Almost instantly, my favorite song on the album was Sisters of Mercy. On a record filled with amazing songs, it managed to stand out, and remains my favorite LC song today.
It starts with Cohen’s intoned “O” met with a simple plucked guitar, in waltz time. “O, the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone.…” Cohen begins to relate his encounter with the mysterious sisters, who comfort him in his weariness and inspire him to write this very song. At the start of the second verse Cohen is joined by tinkling percussion and squeezeboxes. I imagine LC singing and playing on the dusty, dimly lit porch of a saloon as the other musicians stroll up behind him. Cohen continues to croon, his voice rising higher over the swelling music.
The lyrics glorify the sisters in religious terms. The narrator makes confession to them. There is talk of love and grace to cure unholiness. But, just who are these sisters? Nuns? Prostitutes? Groupies? Cohen once said he wrote the song for two women who visited him in a hotel once and inspired the song. Yeah, sounds like groupies to me. Whatever the case may be, Cohen the narrator is transformed by the encounter and urges his listener to seek the sweet salvation of the sisters. I’ve always cherished the line “Don’t turn on the light; you can read their address by the moon.” Like the whole record, this song is pure poetry set to a pretty, hummable tune. A true masterpiece.
No comments:
Post a Comment